Odd Couple
by Demyrie
Summary: TFA: human!AU. Prowl is a young, chilly policeman; Lockdown is a casual scoundrel who, on a regular occasion that didn't involve a broken bike and a rainy night, he might just put behind bars. At least things can't get any worse, right? LockdownxProwl
1. Tea Vs Whiskey

A/N: I'm really, really sorry. I started… doodling humanized versions of Prowl and Lockdown and then I lost the game. AND MY LIFE.

Sorry. This is for fun, and a cheer-up for a rainy monday. Please don't report me to the Sanity Police.

Two notes: Prowl is uptight (and we knew that) but Lockdown is milder and a bit better adjusted (and more mischievous) because… well, deep-space bounty hunters have loads more problems than lecherous old drag-racers with bounty-hunting tendencies. He lives in Detroit, man, he doesn't have THAT many opportunities to get jacked up XD

I'm also sorry for not being clever enough to think up human names for them. Muu.

**EDIT**: HAHA. I FIXED IT. …Some of it. This story really evolved, so the beginning chapter was like 'what the hell was I trying to do?!'

* * *

Tea Versus Whiskey

* * *

It was Saturday night and Prowl was at a bar.

Strange, yes. Unheard-of? Not now.

Prowl had practically been banished there, told by a very fed-up and strict-looking Optimus that he was spending far too much time on patrol. His function as third Prime of the Detroit Police Department included looking after the mental health of the officers under his watch and he had found Prowl's 'behavior' (a vague, bloated term, riddled with an uncomfortable lack of evidence and eye-contact) to be both worrying and displeasing. Prowl, a very logical young man, could see nothing wrong with neither his so-called behavior nor his extra hours on the job: overtime pay was always welcome and the weather had been lovely.

Channeling a mildness Optimus found hard to fight, the officer tried to communicate the freedom he gained by speeding through the streets at night—almost to the point where looking for suspicious activity was of secondary importance to coasting along the outer city limits in the crisp-smelling autumn finery--but the unprofessional four-member jury of the Project still hung him. If asked, anyone (sans Bulkhead) in the house would inform you quite readily that Prowl was an over-controlling, workaholic, Zen-addicted antisocial wretch who sincerely needed a(nother) hobby or a drink or three.

And, of course, a hot biker chick to ride with.

That last suggestion was Bumblebee's, lobbed at his retreating back on the way out (along with several garish physical descriptions and all-too-easy bike-centered double entendres that made the officer wince). Being of better blood than that, however, he firmly failed to take any of his housemate's concerns or suggestions into account on his 'night out'. The young man sat in a booth at a scientifically random bar on the edge of Detroit, pointedly alone, with a pot of lukewarm chai tea at his elbow and the stiff attitude of one serving penitence until he could get back on the road again, expressive black brows knotted behind his dated ice-blue sunglasses.

Already calculating the lightly-narrated show he would regale Optimus with, making certain to include words like 'relaxing' and 'freeing' and possibly 'socially titillating', Prowl decided that a timely arrival just a quarter-hour after eleven would communicate precisely the right degree of enjoyment to his teammates—knowing, even as they futilely hoped for his sociable acclimation, that he did not dance, date, drink, or do anything that merited staying out after ten o'clock, save star-gazing. Sighing, he tapped the pot and took another sip of his tea. It was hard enough getting the kettle—even now the bartender was eying him as though he truly was unhinged, just as he had when he politely requested the thing. He was lucky he brought his own tea with him.

Then again, that was the way he was trained. Prepare for the worst. Prowl frowned. Perhaps he was a bit too pessimistic?

But no, no he wasn't—because just as he was about to remind himself that the place was actually quiet and low-lit, the tea came out nicely and it was slightly pleasant to sit someplace that didn't have Bumblebee's damn video games beeping and blipping and screaming in the adjacent room, he was _approached_.

By whom? A man. A strange man? Hardly.

Strange wouldn't even have begun to describe him.

He was well-built—a fact made only too obvious from the cling of the green-black leather suit and the outline of his bear-like muscled thighs—but strangely wiry, with a tight waist and absurdly broad shoulders. Above that, black tattoos cut his shaved head and hooked around his reddish eyes: red to match his vacant white skin. Albino. Albino, with a hook for a hand.

Then there were the spikes. Prowl didn't want to consider the implications of the spikes.

"Hey, kid. Whaddya drinkin'?"

His voice was abrasive enough to shave a yak. Prowl stared at him for a good, long, half-sick three minutes before really giving up on the fact that no, the skinhead leather-daddy wasn't actually talking to _him_ but the stretch of glass behind him. Or the lamp. Or the wall. Or anything, including but not limited to buxom blonde hallucinations.

"Tea," he answered through his teeth, when he simply kept staring.

"… Long island tea?"

"No."

"Tea with whiskey?"

"No."

"Straight tea."

"Mm."

"Straight leaves-in-water, leave-to-soak tea."

"Yes," Prowl nearly seethed. The stranger guffawed.

"Hell. You ain't drinkin', you're hydratin'," he slurred in amusement, fishing out a thick-glassed bottle of liquid from his jacket. He wiggled it, liquid sloshing enticingly--_apparently_. "Wanna light your night up?"

"Not particularly," he responded, curtness causing the strangers tattooed brows to shoot up. Then, smiling like he'd just found a treasure (possibly the equivalent to a pornography magazine, by the enticed quirk of his wide mouth) he leaned on the side of Prowl's booth, leather squealing, and uncorked the bottle with a squeaky pop.

"What's your name, kid?"

"I don't see why I should give it," Prowl sniffed, knowing even as he did so that a) he was arguing with a drunk man and b) it would be taken as a challenge. He knew the feel of these types of men and their sticky egos, if the outrageous leather and spikes hadn't completed the image already.

"Can I sit down?" he asked, far too nicely for the aforementioned spikes.

"No," said Prowl flatly, glaring at him.

He sat down. Prowl twitched. After making a veritable scene settling himself in the padded booth and hiking a leg up (steel-tipped boots) onto the opposite booth seat, the man regarded him with shrewd pink-red eyes for a good too-long time before exhaling:

"Damn, but you're fine."

"And you smell like whiskey," Prowl snapped tightly, hunching under the weight of the confused (and amused) stare of the bartender over the stranger's spiked shoulder. No, he was officially _not_ too pessimistic: his life, when it strayed outside the hypnotic circuit of patrol and paperwork, was downright lamentable. Regardless of his fresh despair, however, he did maintain some standards. Under no terms did he come here to be sexually harassed, much less by a _man_.

"Please leave."

"You gonna kung-fu me outta here?" the older man asked, leaning back, the waft of masculine scent (cologne and tightly-held sweat) the move released almost jarring Prowl from what he had just said. The officer narrowed his eyes. Even if it was from behind his sunglasses, the stranger saw the rest of his strict, long face crinkle and grinned, brandishing a neat little hole where he'd lost a tooth.

"I can see the shuriken in your boots," he explained lazily, then leaned toward the other's ear and grunted: "They're almost as tight as your pants."

His khaki pants, in all actuality, could not even begin to compare to the groin-hugging mastery that was the stranger's green and black leather second-skin. Nonetheless, the off-color comment both stunned and aggravated Prowl to the point of a heart attack. In the storm of confusion he managed to _shield himself_ from the lecherous stranger and present a look so utterly condescending and aloof… that it still failed to negate the nasty chuckle and head-shake from his new 'companion'. Before Prowl could demand where he knew the term from (or demand once again that he remove his vagrant ass from his booth, thank you kindly), the man reached over and thumbed up the collar of his gold-detailed leather jacket, ravaged and scar-laced knuckles nearly scraping his young neck.

"Nice jacket. You ride?"

"Yes," Prowl irked out, spooked by the almost-contact and the other's unflappable physical presence. He blocked the rest of the bar like a siege wall, trapping the younger man in the booth.

"I race," he said, taking a swig of whatever was in the bottle—just, apparently, to loosen his tongue to the point of falling off. "Drag race. Just got back from one."

"Oh really," Prowl said icily. He nearly twitched, presented with both a possible lead and a way to make this lecher leave him alone

"Yup. Run'a the mill run, y'know. First place." He pinched his fingers together, grinning over at the young officer idiotically. "Almost lost it by this much."

"Victory in an illegal drag-racing circuit—and at the cost of how many streetlamps and stop-signs?"

"Y'say that like it's a bad thing," the stranger said mildly, appraising red eyes making up for the lack of punch in his voice. "What's your bag, kid?"

"Law enforcement." Prowl said dryly, because no true racer would brag to a stranger, they were too tightly kept—and, suddenly, getting the lecher to leave him alone was far, far more important than his job. The stranger whistled.

"Damn, but I pick 'em," the man drawled, rubbing his good hand across his tattooed face. "A whack-job ninja cop. Who'da thought?"

"My training in ninjitsu has nothing to do with my profession," Prowl snapped, aggravated both at the man's mocking tone and the fact he felt the need to defend himself to the drunkard. The man shook his head again.

"Hobby?" he asked.

"Philosophy."

"I got a philosophy. Win, n' don't come back 'till you do." The man burst out laughing at his own non-joke, then leaned in far too close, rasping: "How 'bout your philosophy and mine go have a drink? Tea versus whiskey. Heard they go pretty well together."

"Enough. Get out."

His tone was so unstable and poisonous that the man actually leaned back, put his hands (hand, then hook) up and slid out of the booth, forcibly blank tattoo-scarred face absorbing the full brunt of Prowl's hateful glare. It had been easy enough to drive the racer out, once he put the full heft of his dislike behind it, but it still left him with a thudding heart and a bad taste in his mouth. The _gall_ of him.

If Prowl thought the stranger was gone for good, however, he was sadly mistaken. The drifter made sure to sit within sight, waving cheerily when Prowl glanced over, only to make him return to his tea in an even fouler mood. _This_ is what bars and other social cesspools got him, _this_ is what trying to be _sociable_ and _pleasant_ landed him with—a crick in his neck, an inability to look up, hot cheeks and a vicious and grinding and unpleasant and uncharacteristic urge to 'kung-fu' the brute.

Prowl would be very, very glad to get back on patrol. Very, very glad. The stress of one night of relaxation almost drove him over the edge.

* * *

When the young cop slunk off to the restroom (he'd been drinking tea so nervously that… well) his would-be companion hefted himself up from his seat with one hand and wandered out into the bar's rare covered garage, metal-reinforced boots making heavy clanging sounds to fit his 200+ pound frame. With a lazy air gifted by the cozy heat of drink in his veins, he admired the rides, obviously looking for something. He chuckled, low and pleased, when he came upon a small, sleek black custom motorcycle with sweeping (but conservative) gold details, tucked at the back of a row and expertly propped. He slid up beside it and fondled the handles.

"Heh. Like kid, like bike."

Musing over the compulsion to pimp up rides to fit the rider (and spending far too much time in that comparison dwelling on the kid's sleek figure and that close-cut leather jacket), the man bent down to engine-level and did something sneaky—just a skillful waggle of something and a flick of something else—and patted a cap back down again with a satisfied noise, then sauntered off whistling.

He left the kid alone for the rest of the night.

* * *

His bike lasted for four miles—just enough time to get hopelessly out of range.

After the dooming _chug_, nearly lost in the noise of the highway but clearly felt between his thighs, Prowl lost control within seconds. Add to that the fact it was raining heavily, and the heart-stopping swerve-screech was made even more terrifying by the inch-thick rain-oil gloss on the black asphalt and the white, blinding rush of a mack truck. After it howled past him, horn blaring, Prowl skidded to a halt on the side of the highway, nearly jolting himself over the front of his rain-wet bike. Gasping and hissing, he flung up the kickstand and dragged himself off, moving around to the front of the bike and bending to inspect the engine in the near-black.

He fell off his haunches and into the rain-filled hole behind him with a cry as the engine made a sick, sputtering noise and began to _smoke_. He literally splashed—the pothole, upon later inspection, was at least a foot deep—and the cold of the fresh autumn water wicked into his pants and down to his underwear in one clammy second, irking a convulsive shiver out of the skinny youth.

Gritting his teeth, he heaved himself out, mentally cursing as he fished for something in his pocket. He found what he was looking for (a flashlight) but his curses doubled when he pulled out his cell-phone, found it to be very, very wet, then proceeded to slip in the rain and send it tumbling into the Evil Pothole of earlier. It spewed muffled static for a split second upon retrieval, then died.

Overwhelmed and dripping, Prowl was so absorbed in his misery and the smoke-complicated inspection of his poor bike's motor that he hardly noticed his new visitor.

Slowly, very slowly, the car detached itself from the ceaseless blur of the highway and pulled up into the light-smoke of its own red headlights, the rest of it doused in black. Drenched in the bloody light, Prowl turned around warily at the murmur of road passing under slow tires, skin prickling under slovenly cling of his sleeveless shirt. His callused hands tightened; he took some comfort in the audible squeak of his gloves.

"Need a hand?" the car rumbled.

Prowl's mouth popped open but closed again as another car whooshed by and illuminated, in full smoky headlight-bleached split-second grandeur, the albino leaning out of his window with a wide grin and one tooth missing. Roguish would have been one word for the smile—predatory and shit-eating would have been two others. Prowl bristled.

"Only got one to spare, though."

Just his luck.

"I can manage," he responded icily, flinging off his leather jacket—he expertly aimed it toward the shady character and managed to catch him in the face with the majority of the resulting spray. He held it above his head, blocking most of the rain only to send it laving down his back and bare shoulders and _into his pants_. Dignity? Not much left.

"You sure? I know a thing or two about bikes… and 'sides that, if there's one thing I've learned about machines, it's that smokin' ain't good."

"Thank you," Prowl said insincerely. "But I'm trained to handle my own equipment."

Pause.

"I'll leave that one alone," the dragster chuckled thickly, making Prowl bristle all over again. He simply peered out his window, saved from the deluge by the ridiculous spiked roof (like driver like car), and watched the young man tinker hopelessly with things as cars zoomed by, fingers losing feeling and warmth even in their leather casings.

At least ten minutes, watching him. Then, finally:

"Y'know, you can't ride your pride home. And it's rainin'."

He had the most stunning talent for stating the obvious in such a rumbling, playful way that Prowl found it a little hard to resent him for it--or too easy to resent him for it, when it was so _cold_ and _wet_ and _raining_ and he kept _staring_. Either or.

"I don't know how this happened. It was fine when I rode in," Prowl murmured, grasping at straws: any straw that would keep him away from the man's roughly-humming muscle car. The stranger shrugged.

"I'll take you to my place." When Prowl turned and glared at him, he put up his hand. "Got a garage, kid, and tools besides that. Warm and dry, with a guaranteed lack of funny business."

Even if the look on his face said anything but.

"What's your name?" the racer asked again, smiling slightly in the pitter-pattering, dark silence. Feeling something give way with a momentous un-heard crunch inside of him (how the wall of resolve crumbled, when faced with that black road, his dead bike and the promise of dry and warm anything), Prowl sighed.

"Prowl," he surrendered softly.

"Lockdown," the other said, holding his hand out of the window. Prowl took it. With his huge mitt cupped around the ninja's soaking hands, the stranger—Lockdown, now—had a chance to get a look at the rest of him in the off-shine of his headlights. He shook once, let go, leaned over to open the door and whistled.

"You're soaked."

He reached back and grabbed something that looked like a poncho from the back seat and bundled it down into the passenger seat.

"Gotta respect the interior," he said quite seriously, then patted the bundle (altogether too charmingly for a middle-aged spike-adorned drag racer with one hand, which made the other man a little nauseatingly nervous). "Climb on in, kid."

"What was the point of asking for my name if you intend to debase me with nicknames the entire time?" Prowl grumbled, following orders with a barely-restrained shiver. Most or all of his thin hair was loose from his ponytail, slicked down to his cheeks in miserable strands, giving him a purely bedraggled look that made the driver chuckle.

"Best to know an animal's name before tryin' to tame it."

Lockdown saved him the chance of answering that cryptic, beyond-offending nugget by getting out in the rain and chaining up his bike to the back of his huge car. By the time he got back in, the heater he inconspicuously flipped on upon exiting had lulled the shivering young man into a state of ecstasy, though he did draw back slightly from his hungry hunch at the vents when Lockdown got back in. The other man chuckled at him and turned it up with his non-hand. That drew Prowl's attention back to the hook—and the unseen process of strapping up his bike. Lockdown saw the dubious look and shook the wicked-looking appendage.

"Any scratches, I pay for it," he said dryly. "I've had this thing long enough to know how to use it."

He started up the car afresh and off they drove.

It was a surprisingly quiet drive. The older man did not attempt conversation with him, nor make anymore sexual overtures. Well, almost. Prowl stiffened when he noticed (in the flashes of neighboring cars) the stranger's gaze dipping down to the front of his utterly-soaked pants, but a snippy huff of I-know-what-you're-doing-and-I-could-have-you-arrested-damnit air was enough to fend off his strangely-red eyes, even if the defense had to be used at least three times on the drive. That was something he could deal with, surprisingly enough, but it was when 'Lockdown' stopped for something at a gas station then 'inconspicuously' got on the highway in the opposite direction that Prowl suspected he hadn't just been 'happened upon'. He'd been followed.

He was also too damn tired to care.


	2. Morning

A/N: Oh Primus! Feedback by the tons, I love you guys! :3 You're incredible! Thank you for stretching and reading a human AU despite their universally bad reviews: I sincerely hope I don't betray your trust with fanwankery, 'cos that would be sob-worthy.

Otherwise? My freaking GOD, Lockdown is a smooth operator. He's had, like, 40 years to get it down, so I assume so, but… OH MY GOD. I wish someone would do that last move to me ;___; Provided I, y'know, had a bike.

..And a mysterious lack of scruples at being courted by a perverted old man. HMMM.

* * *

Morning

* * *

Prowl woke with a start nearly six hours later, practically paralyzed with the feeling of _having no earthly idea where he was_.

The feel of leather beneath him (alongside a horribly squishy cushion—the young man preferred his beds as hard as a wooden plank) disoriented him more than he could vocalize; he wallowed around in the carnivorous old couch for a good three terror-struck minutes before actually remembering the night before and promptly sinking back down with a defeated groan. His physical discomfort was… overwhelming. His clothes were stiff and ugly-smelling from their all-night, mostly-wet cling to his body and his very well-trained spine howled from being left to dip and drip into whatever positions the oddly-stuffed couch allowed. Once the mostly-stranger had settled him on it with a point and a grunt, Prowl vaguely remembered forcing himself to stay awake for nearly half an hour, struck with a sudden and very plausible fear that the man would come in and… _do_ something to him in the unfamiliar dark. But here he was: somewhat rested and surprisingly untouched.

He should never have fallen asleep in the first place, probably, but still, here he was.

The young man attacked his head a bit, scratching at his hair, then shook it out and retied it at the base of his neck. Scratched-up windows both square and bare, new autumn sunlight stabbed into the dusty khaki air of the… it could only be described as a glorified hut or a bunker. It was as though someone started with a garage and simply added on from there like a cake, building up and out into a loft and not bothering to match wood or paint. Still, it was well-equipped enough and looked fully _lived-in_, complete with a kitchenette and a TV and--was that… a stuffed moose head? Alongside a stuffed deer head?

Trophy men. He would never understand them.

Prowl, looking around suspiciously and treading as lightly as possible on the grey-ish freyed carpet, tip-toed (unbidden, unwelcome) into the (personal space, foreign) bathroom and splashed some blessed water into his face, trying not to look at the scattered hygiene products. After he realized 'Lockdown' was not waiting to ambush him with a length of rope and his hook the moment he woke up, and he was indeed stranded in (or trusted in) an unknown house, Prowl carefully navigated his way downstairs to look for the only source of human contact he had. He found the older man in his extensive garage, bent over his glossy black bike with a grey wifebeater and jeans on. His white skin literally glowed in the slanting sunlight and the garage was open to the autumn day, chill as a lake; even so, the wifebeater had faint grey blotches of sweat at his chest and sides.

Despite his saucy, drunken attitude the night previous, Lockdown certainly didn't look like he had a hangover. He looked up when Prowl walked in, still in his rumpled clothes, hair hastily tied back and smoothed over into some façade of together-ness. The young law enforcer had a strict allergy to looking undignified in front of anybody, even if forced to crash on their couch.

Lockdown gave an acknowledging gesture and went right back to work. At first, beyond the overwhelmingly… _casual_ look of the man when not wrapped in leather, Prowl's eyes caught on the numerous tattoos weaving over the white surface of his muscle-taut back and arms. Some of the skin was mutilated, before or after the images had been rendered, but first and foremost was a toothy tire-track plowing its way over the front of the man's chest and banding his upper arms. Of course, if he'd been brazen enough to tattoo black claw-marks around his eyes and chin, the rest of him would be inked up as well. This was all well and good (or mediocre and uncomfortable) to Prowl and within his range of expectation, only compounding his rather unflattering view of the man as a cheap, hard-hitting ruffian.

Then he saw the _hand_—or two of them.

"Your—hand," Prowl blurted out, eyes wide behind his ever-present sunglasses. He hadn't meant to speak at all, right down to his bike-retrieval and hopefully speedy exit, but the fact that the other's appendages had apparently _multiplied_ during the night caught him more than unawares. Lockdown looked up, grinned, then gouged at an invisible seam near his wrist, plucking the stretchy white skin-stuff up to expose metal. He flexed his thick, thick fingers: Prowl's ears caught a mechanical whirr.

"Advanced prosthetic. Sumdac industries does damn good work."

Prowl fought not to gape as he put that mechanical hand straight back to work again, carrying on. He swallowed, mightily confused.

"Then… the hook?"

"For show," Lockdown said easily, shrugging his massive ink-marred shoulders. "Makes it a lot easier to spread a legend if you've lost a bit of yourself. Mostly use it on drag nights, y'know."

"Drag nights?" Prowl repeated in what he realized later was false innocence—at the moment, it just seemed like the easiest thing to parrot.

"Drag _racing_," he grunted, throwing the other a none-too-annoyed look. "S'all I had before I could get this baby, so I'm used to it."

Prowl was impressed and unnerved at the same time. He was shrewd, certainly, flaunting his amputation in order to gain image—provided, of course, he wasn't simply a braggart imitation. Shrewd and beyond impertinent fit him equally, Prowl was to find out, when the man surprised him with the last thing he'd ever expected or would ever agree to. Lockdown, apparently, was a very bad judge of character.

"You wanna come watch?"

"Watch what?" Prowl asked, baffled—still stuck, probably, on the two-hands thing, and horridly unaccustomed to limiting himself to dumb questions.

"My race," Lockdown clarified, grinning his gap-toothed grin and swiping at his hands with a filthy frayed cloth. "It'll be a cold day in hell when I lose, so y'don't need to worry about bein' disappointed with the show. I'll even get you in for free."

It was as though the other was speaking a different language: the proposal just refused to make _sense_ to Prowl. When he finally comprehended it (perhaps mired in the same level of disbelief at which he held the fact that he was stranded in a strange man's house on the edge of Detroit after a thoroughly harassing late-night encounter with the selfsame man and his bike was broken and oh my—his _cell-phone_--) he shook his head.

"You forget." A brief rustle of leather preceded a flash of his badge. "I would have to arrest you."

Lockdown whistled.

"That'd be a bad start," he said mildly, wrench in (real) hand.

"I would have to agree." Prowl watched the older man, giving him a nod when he looked up and continuing wryly, "In fact, owing as you have given me a sizable lead on your very illegal operation, you had best hope I don't find you on one of my patrols."

Perhaps it was his version of a warning. The man was a casual scoundrel, obviously, but had still assisted Prowl in his time of need. Neither man was above selective kindnesses, it seemed. Nonetheless, Lockdown remained utterly imperturbable.

"Just gimme your route. I'll duck at just the right time," he promised slickly, then stole a glance at the slim, stiff-necked youth and disappeared back into his bike. "Hell, darlin', provided you keep a pair of handcuffs on you and promise to beat me up a bit first, I'll lie in wait for ya."

The former exchange had been pleasant in a subdued way, nearly so much that Prowl hadn't realized the playful aspect while occupied with unconsciously trying to tease the other's hidden intellect out… then that outright flirtatious statement spooked him like cold water to his face. It was repulsive in the most rudimentary of senses: after that, he had to move _away_. The young cop shut up and retreated to the side of the garage, hurriedly over-analyzing anything they'd said before. Flustered and unhinged in a way he'd simply never felt _and_ loathe to bait the deviant any further, he remained out of sight until Lockdown craned around to look at him again.

"The couch good for you?"

"Quite satisfactory."

"Try 'good'. All the meaning with a fraction'a the syllables. Got a hell of an efficiency issue there, ninjacop."

Before Prowl could think up a response to the barb at his vocabulary (or the new, equally undesirable nickname), Lockdown surfaced from his bike, clicked something back into place and patted the front windshield.

"S'done."

Prowl stared at the pseudo-mechanic for a minute or two. The idea of simply getting up and riding out of this fringes-of-Detroit bunker seemed a little surreal, even if that didn't make it appeal any less to the sincerely frazzled young man. There was only the little matter of _how_ to exit. This 'encounter' didn't amount to anything more than chance and certainly lay outside the bounds of logic, but civility…? Taking a step forward (to compensate, perhaps, for his lack of knowledge of _how to proceed_), Prowl cleared his throat as the other man began to pack up his tools.

"I have to go," he said needlessly.

Lockdown, wrench in his gap-toothed mouth, shrugged and waved over his shoulder with his mechanical hand. Prowl scuffed his feet, wondering if he should pay the man who had 'rescued' him or if the time-hardened racer would take it as an insult. He still didn't know whether this episode was out of kindness, curiosity, lechery or a brain-aching mix of all three. The young man's dilemma was solved by the fact that he didn't have anything on him save five dollars and a debit card, so he just swallowed and, feeling unbearably unsure, walked up and took the freshly-repaired bike by the handles.

"Thank you," he said suddenly.

"Fer what? The good time?" Lockdown asked, sharp evil tattoos twisting as he smiled.

"For… repairing my bike," Prowl murmured thickly, running his now-gloved hands over the seat self-consciously.

"You'll thank me next time," the other assured him. Prowl frowned.

"For?"

"The good time."

Without another word, Lockdown winked and flashed his gap and went back inside. A few seconds and up-stair footsteps later, Prowl heard a door shut—and that was that. He got up, put his helmet on and rode off.

When Prowl got back to the base, dismounting a good distance from the base to avoid detection, he found a scrap of paper tied with a piece of twine around his front bars.

Inside? A cellphone number.


	3. Walk of Shame

A/N: OH BUMBLEBEE. Lawl.

(And yeah. Had to get rid of the hook somehow. I'm a dirty slitherer-outerer, I know.)

* * *

Walk of Shame

* * *

It was strange, how the return to the base felt so akin to what college culture dubbed the 'walk of shame': the misfortune of being forced to return to one's abode in the same outfit they wore to the previous night's distractions, admittedly (and tellingly) more crumpled than before.

Although that had more to do with the fact of spending the night curled up on a lumpy leather couch in still-slightly-damp clothing than any sort of unsavory activity, Prowl wasn't about to begin hoping that his housemates wouldn't assume it wasn't just as bad as it looked—or worse. One of Ratchet's favorite platitudes was 'it's always the quiet ones'. Burdened with the possibility of his own personal inquisitorial squad, Prowl attempted to make an inconspicuous entrance, killing his well-behaving engine a good fifteen yards from the base and walking it the rest of the way to the garage. The rumpled cop's plan of cutting straight to the showers was murdered in its proverbial cradle when the first room he cut across, which just so happened to be the make-shift living room or social quarters, also just so happened to be littered with every single one of his housemates, who all turned at the noise of a door closing and pinned him with the same wide-eyed stare.

He let out a silent groan of mental and emotional anguish when Optimus, ever prim and reasonable, cleared his throat and tried not to give him the once-over (or twice over, or thrice-over) that Bumblebee and Ratchet were being so generous with.

"Prowl. Welcome… uh, back. Where were you last night?"

Nowhere to go but up—or so Prowl told himself. Part of him actually wanted to revel in the completeness of his extremely exotic misery. All gained, of course, by being forced to venture into the outside world with social-interactive intentions.

And so.

"In… mediocre hands," Prowl sighed. Then, with a miserable twitch: "Hand."

Before his team Prime could ask for a further explanation, he continued.

"I broke down outside of the city on the way back. A… bar patron spotted me on the side of the road and allowed me to stay at his home while he repaired my bike," the young man said heavily, far too aware of _what he was saying_. "I'm unscathed and uncharged, admittedly, but I can't vouch for the… child-friendly nature of my company."

"What do you mean?" Optimus asked, bright blue eyes narrowed in confusion.

"…He was an albino with a spiked muscle car and a hook for a hand."

"Holy_ shit_," Bumblebee blurted, nearly hooting himself off the couch in glee. Optimus glared at him (the kid cursed way too much for being seventeen and was solidly deserving of the brusque head-smack Ratchet dealt him) then demanded, nearly apoplectic with shock:

"_What_? I… assumed—_hoped_--you were having too good of a time to call, but—wait, why didn't you _call_?"

"My cell-phone fell into a puddle and broke," Prowl said miserably, moving over to the couch and leaning against it, arms crossed. "I was unable to."

"And he didn't want anybody busting in on his one-night stand! He's so freakin' gay. I _knew_ it," Bumblebee hissed to Bulkhead, far too audibly for decency's sake—even exempting the sloppy struggle onto the back of the couch to get to his friend's ear. "He had me at 'nature'."

Bulkhead gaped down at his best friend, round face radiating vicarious hurt.

"_Bumble_bee, don't be so—"

Prowl twitched, raising his voice over his shoulder and calling stiffly:

"Just because some of us prefer to expand our horizons instead of constantly watching pornography—"

"I dunno what kinda porn _you_ watch—" The skinny teen twitched, then crammed the heels of both palms into his eyes. "In fact, _ugh_, scratch that thought and the sausage-overload it brings—"

"_Jesus_," Prowl swore loudly, raking one hand viciously through his unwashed hair and pushing off the couch. It was the first time anyone had heard him curse, come to think of it--or even make a move that didn't seem fluid and planned. Ratchet's eyebrows crept up the more Prowl boiled, the elder glaring coldly at the teen from behind his angular sunglasses. The encounter, still heavy and unorthodox on his mind, must have truly put him outside his comfort zone. He'd never seen the reserved young cop so flustered.

"—'probly involves an orchestrated soundtrack and a video of grass growing--"

"Cool it, Bumblebee," Optimus said sternly, putting out a blue-gloved hand. The youngster backed off with a waggled tongue and their team leader faced their resident ninja with a severe face. "That was a serious risk you took."

"I--I had no choice," Prowl insisted, a small flare of indignation coloring his voice. What with the embarrassment of the situation in the first place, chased by this needless confrontation—and all due to _Prime's orders_… he ground his teeth.

"You could've gone back to the bar, called one of us in," Optimus said, frowning deeply. "Anything but going home with a stranger."

He honestly hadn't thought of that. At that point in the night, soaked to the skin and harassed and bloated with the misery of a wasted evening, Prowl would have done anything to get out of the rain—and was too tired to continue thinking about the best choice, much less to try and battle the dragster into dropping him back off at the bar. Then there was the matter of his bike… and Prime's diction. 'Going home with a stranger'. Pride stung, Prowl snorted, fuming for his obvious and ridiculous slip.

"May I ask why you are treating me as though I am incapable of defending myself?" he demanded, unable to keep the sting from his cool voice.

"Now it's your turn to cool it," Optimus rejoined reprovingly, cocking a thick brow. "I'm not implying anything, Prowl. I'm just saying, _as a friend_, that I would rather you not put yourself in such obvious—"

"Then perhaps, rather than being forced into farcical social interactions by the selfsame _concerned friend_, I should limit my life to riding around Detroit in endless circles. It sounds the perfect remedy for my voluntary, immature and purposefully scandalous actions, provided you would simply _leave me to it_."

Prowl hit his team leader with a glare so icy it shut the other's open mouth, then stomped off towards the bathroom.

"Before you castigate me any further, with all due respect--I need a shower."

Several seconds later, a door slammed and the raspy sound of water filtered out of the west wing.

"That's not… like him," Bulkhead murmured after a moment, voicing the same off-chord feeling weighing everyone's mouths into a frown.

"Yeah. I thought he was, like, obsessed with patrol," Bumblebee mumbled slowly, turning a questioning eye to Prime. The other shook his head, still gazing at the hallway where Prowl disappeared.

"He's shaken. Not in his right mind," he muttered.

"He's also old enough to take care of himself."

Optimus looked back to see Ratchet settling back on one of the couches, thick figure making the cushions dip severely.

"If Prowl says he didn't have a choice, I trust him on the matter. You know how he is—all logic, expert at assessin' any given situation. S'why he's on the payroll," the old medic grunted, frowning at his younger superior in a troubled way. He waved his hand. "Give him time… and don't force him out into the real world again. He's just gonna resent you for it and it wadn't your business to begin with. You're ridin' him a little too hard, Prime."

Pause.

"B-b-bet Prowl'd like that!" Bumblebee finally screamed, nearly stamping his feet with the horror and glory of it. Optimus whirled, brandishing a Very Serious Finger at him.

"Bumblebee!"

"Hooohoo-hoohoo!"

And he was off, darting towards his room to avoid punishment. Optimus nearly gagged, slapping his forehead as Ratchet shook his head like he'd never _seen_ youngsters act like this in his day—nor wanted to drive a scalpel into their throat so very badly.


	4. Dark Alleyways and Stupid Decisions

A/N: M'awww, Prowl is SO AWKWARD. Nobody likes him ;_; And I love Lockdown to bits.

Thank you SO much for all of your responses, you guys are awesome! As for your questions, the 'house/team situation' will be explained next chapter and I am freaking BLUSHING over here that I've actually gotten inquiries about Torque XD Guh, ya got me eating out of your hand! (And? I'm thinking quite :3) Also, pretty much given up ALREADY on trying to make this uber-realistic on the legal end. I just fail. This is for fun.

So... any law-enforcers out there reading this?_ So freaking sorry_. I only do it for the Elitist-Bitch!Prowl and the Grungy-Nympho!Lockdown. Yep.

PS: HANDCUFFS.

* * *

Dark Alleyways and Stupid Decisions

* * *

It was a little strange, how it all came together.

"Prowl? My office, please."

Far from waving it away, Optimus had apparently spent the next few days taking Prowl's outburst to heart. It was a rare day when anyone saw their resident ninja flustered, after all, and it gave Optimus as much of a turn as anybody. Predictably, their straight-laced superior had his fingers solidly bitten for trying to intrude upon the strange young man's (lack of) social life, so when an opportunity to mend bridges came up, he took it. A spot had just opened up on a new team on the force: a subdivision devoted to cracking, of all things, the underground drag-racing circuit. The precise collection of officers only patrolled the general area frequented by the operation, tracking progress, taking in informants and following leads; all that.

Sitting somewhat uncomfortably behind his desk, Optimus informed him that his night shifts would start immediately, then fiddled with a pen for a minute before sending him on his way with a list of his superiors. Too busy giving his associate 'what he wanted' in the hopes of eking out a tacit truce between them, the Prime didn't seem to notice how Prowl's fine black brows nearly bolted for refuge in his hairline at the promotion… but that had more to do with a certain sense of coincidence than the relative pleasure of being appointed to a job with copious amounts of driving around the city (even if it was limited to the industrial section). Still, Prowl had things to keep himself busy now and even if this new project increased his chances of seeing 'Lemme Give You a Hand' again, at least it would be in the proper enforcer-versus-ruffian environment: circumstances that would endow him with the proper authority to _deal_ with the other man.

Part of him was a little too comfortable with that idea, even if it would most likely never happen.

Thus unseated, Prowl had very little time to adapt to the team-switch but similarly very little to do. He was given a schedule and left to let the big names do the strategizing, striding back to the echoing garage to ride home for a quick sleep before his first shift. It was standard treatment. Though he was not a new face in Detroit Police Department by any means, many of the elder officers had never precisely… warmed up to him. Granted, his 'personal temperature' seldom rose above an afternoon chill (complete with killer eyebrow-arch and doubly deadly 'polite silence'), but there was something beyond his sterile but utterly civil conduct that threw others off.

No matter how he followed the ordinances and rules to the letter, gaining his own stability from his code of purpose, his superiors never seemed to _trust_ him nor desire to reward him. The young officer had an achievement streak a mile wide and always followed through with the same stern, professional attitude, but it seemed to make no difference. While his traits may have been cherished in a leadership position, like, say, Second in Command, in his current situation Prowl was simply _off-putting_—and with this kind of reception and restrained mistrust from his otherwise perfectly respectable coworkers, was it any wonder he politely avoided social situations?

It made no difference. Most either had no desire to seek him out or had learned never to provoke him (even if Optimus, apparently, still lacked a masters degree in that area). He simply continued in his sequestered life, doing… what was necessary. A little stark, yes, but entirely functional. He found ways to keep occupied.

No, it truly made no difference to his state. A week after being assigned to the team and a week and a half after his self-dubbed Walk of Shame, Prowl was still speeding along an unlit street, padded helmet cutting off the blood-flow to his ears. He needed a new one: he had been considering a stylized one in a local shop—the same color scheme as his bike--but that would have to wait until his next paycheck. He wouldn't normally dwell on such pointlessly materialistic things, but retracing his route through a dark city at odd, empty hours of the morning left one with uncomfortable amounts of extra 'dwelling' energy and very little scenery to expel it on. Prowl sighed through his numb, narrow nose, pushing on.

Feeling uncommonly compact and insect-like on his small bike in the yawning black rain-glazed street (and a little achy from three hours of nonstop patrol), Prowl eased into a red light and looked up, then squinted into the dark. A bulky car shadow, sans headlights, sat just below the haloed traffic light—the first 'visitor' he'd had all night in his designated part of town. The car hummed and puttered gutturally, seeming to consider him wryly from across the stark empty street. Just as the light went green, the headlights flared… blotting out Prowl's scratched-up visor with a gush of raw red. Red headlights.

Prowl felt a crystalline thrill drill down his spine as the car took a right, straight underneath a sputtering streetlamp, and he saw _green_. Green and black, even, arranged in trademark jig-saw ridges. It was more than strange, but… Waiting a moment, gloved hands twisting noisily on his handlebars, Prowl hopped the left-turn lane to slide after the suspicious muscle car at a casual crawl, leaning low on his bike.

He trailed the car for three miles. With each dirty streetlight, more features blinked into view, fleshing out and consolidating its identity: spikes, sharp tail-light décor, gaudy, masculine double exhaust pipes on each side. By the time it creaked to a pause in the middle of the street, then turned into a dirty and unnervingly random parking lot, he knew he'd been found out--if there was anything to 'find', being the only thing in the other's review mirror at two am on the fringes of downtown Detroit. Alerting any nearby units wasn't an option due to his staggering lack of evidence, even if pursuing the muscle car in the empty streets was pathetically obvious. It was all he could have done. Frowning, Prowl stopped behind the cusp of the nearest corner to watch who could only be Lockdown park his car in a lazy swerve, then emerge from the bulky green monster _fully suited_ in his vicious leather racing gear. Prowl's mouth twitched into a smirk, prematurely pleased with his apparent pile of suspicious behavior and et up by the blazing coincidence of it all. Perhaps he was pacing the track before the race started…

The possibilities were endless and promising. As he watched, the man shut the door and leaned back in the jaundice-yellow burn of a streetlamp, rummaged in his pocket, lit up with an opaque gush of smoke—and turned to stare directly at him.

Unexpected, and not the tiniest bit unproblematic.

Why the young officer—alone, technically ungrounded in his flyaway second-hand suspicions—didn't simply drive on, or drive on and loop back like a smart man, was beyond him, but with that unnervingly distinct turn of his head, Lockdown made it impossible to skulk off like any other officer would have done. Or, any officer who didn't have a strange, beneath-the-skin compulsion to save face in front of a man he'd met once in a bar on the edge of town. Personal judgment, personal offense; there was no other option but confrontation, not when he felt pathetic for tailing the other so obviously. He felt _caught_ with the man staring at him so, regardless of his badge and impending probable cause, and that fact sent a gush of bile through him.

After enduring the goading weight of the man's pale-red eyes for two rotations of green and red at the light, Prowl mentally thumbed at his pistol, muscled down a wary noise and took a right, coasting into the parking lot and pulling up a good fifteen yards from Lockdown's customized beast. Killing the engine, he got off with a rustle of leather and strictly-starched khaki. Swiftly inspecting any possible hiding places for 'lackeys', Prowl glared through his visor at the other man, who took a luxurious drag on his cigar and blew it into the rot-yellow lamplight before deigning to look at the officer.

"Damnit," Lockdown drawled warmly, inspecting the young man's full work gear with a fond eye—including the matte black pistol at his hip. "Knew it was only a matter'a time."

He _rumbled_ and looked away even as he approached Prowl with lazy slapping footsteps, voice thick with playful agony.

"This is gonna be awkward."

"Going somewhere, Lockdown?" Prowl asked crisply, motioning to his spiked suit and analogous car.

"Aw darlin', I still got time for you," he promised, flicking some ash off his cigar with his good hand, then raising a matching one into the light to gesture at Prowl, who narrowed his eyes. Impertinence still intact, but no hook tonight. "First take off that helmet. Can't talk with what I can't see."

"Do not allow me to delay you. You have too many legends to spread, I'm certain." The officer crossed his arms, nodding at the new limb arrangement and trying not to twitch from the cheeky terms of endearment slopping off the other's tongue like fresh spittle. "You seem to be missing some of your racing equipment. Have you abandoned your gimmick?"

"Just traded one for another. Bein' a cyborg still puts me pretty high on the list, figure."

"Charming."

He took another puff, smug smile leaking smoke.

"Thought your bedtime was at seven, kid. What's got you out and about at this time'a night?"

"I might ask you the same," Prowl retorted. "In fact, I believe I will. Where are you going, Lockdown? And, more importantly, what are your chances of winning if I delay you until sunrise?"

"You think I'm gonna lead you to the circuit," Lockdown chuckled after a long, empty moment of simply standing in that filthy, echoing parking lot. He shook his head, dropping the stub of his cigar onto the ground and crushing it with his steel-tipped boot. "Ain't gonna happen."

"There is a race tonight?" Prowl asked coolly, utterly independent, daring feeling thrilling along his concealed skin to rival an invigorating draft, surrounded at all sides by nothing but black concrete and early morning sleep. A ghost town, prepped for a race; a chance, in some ways, to end his link with this strange man quickly and cleanly. Perhaps a promotion, though that notion seemed to make little sense in this alien landscape. He forced a smile. "Perhaps I'll take you up on your offer of watching."

"Sure, kid. Sure."

He could see the gears, rusted and malicious though they were, turning in the other's white skull.

"Y'know what? Why not. I got time," he muttered after a moment more of _staring_, wide mouth curling at the edges. Nerves alight, Prowl nearly quivered as the man leaned toward his car, physically promising his next words. "You just gotta catch me first."

Lockdown turned and took a few steps, then looked back at Prowl with a grin before taking off with a scrape of his boots, bolting towards his car. Prowl hissed and grappled his walkie-talkie off of his belt and flipped it on, adrenaline turning his veins into a hot highway.

"Four-one-six, four-one-six, reporting a—"

Amid the crush-sizzle of static, the scrapes reversed direction and Prowl looked past his walkie-talkie to see the hulking dragster rushing him. Startled, the officer locked up, thrusting out an arm to counter the tall and overwhelming weight of the man; he cried out as Lockdown dropped and whipped his feet out from under him with a pass of his huge leg. The dark cityscape lurched and Prowl landed hard on his palms, walkie-talkie skittering away over the concrete then yo-yoing back. The shadow-thick drag racer grabbed for it and slashed the wire connecting it to the officer's hip with a suddenly-glinting knife, heaving himself to his feet and running to his open car.

Prowl snarled and struggled up off the concrete, pain daggering up his arms as he heard a door slap closed; Lockdown gunned his engine viciously, making the very ground vibrate. The young man looked up, glaring past the white scratches on his visor to see the Lockdown leaning out of his window with an evil grin, waggling the amputated walkie-talkie tauntingly. The second he was on his feet, the car roared off with an exhibitionist screech. Blood rushing through his cold limbs, icing painfully underneath the scrapes on his palms, Prowl muscled himself onto his bike and tore after him.

Lockdown led him through the city at a screaming pace, Prowl slicked down to his bike as he pursued with a stiff wrist, cranked against his accelerator. With every mile slurping beneath his tires—and black miles it was, street after street with green and red smears for lights—Prowl's compact heart thudded faster, tight helmet pressing his ears back into his burning brainstem. The private, challenging physicality of it stunned him, enflamed him, birthing a thrill of the chase—thrill of the hunt, even—that nearly swept away his original purpose.

Then Lockdown pulled off the road, jerked to a halt in another parking lot, kicked the door out and sprinted into an unlit alleyway.

Prowl didn't think. Looking back, thinking forward, the infamously logical Prowl _did not think_, too saturated with the forward momentum of the chase to simply back off and idle and wait by the ruffian's car until he returned… because Lockdown had to return in order to race. No, the chase had condensed to the man himself, all flesh and blood and brainstem-reward, not the ugly car and its involvement in the nebulous official drag racing concept. Seeing his personal insult-sweetened quarry escape down an alleyway—even if he was perfectly free to do so because _Prowl had no evidence_ besides a petty bit of property destruction and provocation—the officer screeched to a stop and kicked himself off the bike to run after him, white teeth bared.

He realized his fatal error—excessive pride, pitifully summarized—when he burst into the quiet alien alleyway and realized that the former feeling of soaring independence had spiraled, very properly, into a feeling of stark aloneness. He was alone. Very alone, crushingly defenseless, devoid of backup or even communication… which made it very, very easy and consequence-empty for Lockdown to detach himself from the threatening offal of the alley and surprise him from behind. Prowl snarled as the split-second prickle of a _presence_ was followed by meaty hands seizing his arms and twisting them behind his back; wrenching him up to his chest, Lockdown gave him a swift half-kick behind both knees, going to his own knees and mashing the young man down face-first into the concrete with a wrestler's precision once Prowl's legs gave out. Prowl grunted as he hit, irking out another pained, shocked noise as the brute's full weight pressed his ribcage into the ground, sending an alarming creaking sensation through his crushed lungs. Regardless, he bucked against the smothering weight, heart slamming in his crunched-soda-can chest.

Terrifying and enraging as it was, however, Prowl wasn't so absorbed in struggling that he missed the purpose of the weight-shift: the racer's girth pinning him at the waist served to free at least one of Lockdown's hands so that he could rip Prowl's handcuffs from his belt, manhandle his viciously-thrashing hands together and cuff him to a nearby water-pipe. The second he heard the cold, pristine click of the cuffs, Prowl yelled in alarm, head jerking up so fast the rough concrete scraped his cheek raw. All of it happened within five sharp, gasp- and grunt-punctuated minutes, even if the other had to fight for an age and a half to secure Prowl's second, skinny and thoroughly forewarned wrist.

Once he had the young officer all strung up, Lockdown quickly backed off onto his knees (out of kicking range) and watched Prowl struggle off his stomach, using the time to catch his breath. He saved up the last bit of hard-won air and coughed it out as a ugly chuckle, pounding at his own leather-wrapped chest as the captured cop scrabbled so he was leaning against the water pipe with his meatless hands cuffed down and to the right of him, held at a height too low to be comfortable.

"Now whaddyou doin', ninjacop, trailin' an innocent guy out for a joyride? Spoilsport," Lockdown growled after a long, long minute, every syllable seeping thick satisfaction. It was the first sentence spoken since their unreal chase: it seemed to muffle the hot unmentionable something in Prowl's blood that had caused him to follow the idiot into the alleyway (or rather, had caused the idiot to follow the rather cunning criminal into the alleyway) and birth an entirely new anger. When the young man stilled his struggles to simply _glare_ at him, straining to sort through his pseudo-jovial sentence and the pinching fact of his well-executed capture, Lockdown chuckled again and sat back against the opposite wall, drawing his muscle-thick legs up towards his chest.

"Races ain't till next week, kid. Ain't nothin' out tonight but streetlights and stray cops," he huffed, eyeing him again and running a dirty hand over the thick black stripe of ink on his bare skull. "N'maybe a guy… lookin' for a good time."

Lockdown had purposefully provoked him.

He had engineered it, racing outfit and all, to seem horribly suspicious and despite all of the contrary evidence—the lack of the hook, the fact Lockdown was so eager to approach him--Prowl had fallen for it. Hard. The split-second epiphany nearly choked him; he could do little more than stare at the other man dumbly, eyes wide. Lockdown grinned again, flashing the gap.

"You're a pretty fine racer. Thanks for… aw, I'll go there. Thanks for _hookin'_, kid."

The shift was stunning. Narrow face bleaching, Prowl coiled up and imploded with rage, breathing harshly through his nose. His poisonous pride flared, white and scalding, walling him off from the other man and into an airless cage rattled by his own heartbeats. It screamed that he couldn't possibly honor the soulless, conniving old man with eye contact, let alone words… even if it was just a defense for the fact he couldn't find the words to begin to say how this _wasn't how it was supposed to go._

It wasn't a problem. Lockdown seemed to know that there generally wasn't much to say if you were cuffed up and splay-legged and _defeated_ on a freezing alleyway floor. He didn't look for banter or tease the bedraggled young man further. He just rearranged himself against the wall and tugged the stolen walkie-talkie out of his pocket.

Prowl watched him, stiffening at the sight of his equipment and seething in his own skin from the acid maelstrom of suspicion and quick, blind hatred. Settling himself closer on the wet ground, the racer fended off a desperate caged-animal kick from Prowl with a strangely serious, even more strangely _effective_ 'Hey', then groped for the free-swinging wire of the cop's walkie-talkie. Dropping the stolen part in his lap, he shifted grips and split the wire casing with his once-again sudden knife. Prowl didn't even have time to flinch at the sight of it before it was sheathed again and Lockdown was carefully twisting the two stripped wire-ends together; static spewed from the walkie-talkie as it suddenly went live. Prowl's eyes widened behind his helmet visor.

"What—"

"Can't leave y'here for some pervert to find."

Lockdown flashed him a thoroughly shameless grin then held the walkie-talkie in front of the young man's face. He angled it, nearly pressing it flush to Prowl's tightly-closed mouth.

"Go on, kiddo. Call it in."

_Click_.

"—one-six, we aren't receiving your signal, please repeat four-one-six. All units are on alert, please repeat."

Prowl stared down at it, then glared past the black box and up at Lockdown and mentally willed the man's blood to boil to screaming steam under his damned skin. His skill was lamentable; all of the details worked themselves out with stunning speed in the officer's head. If Prowl raised the alert and snarled that he was being held against his will, Lockdown would be gone before they could even begin to track him… or leave him cuffed before he could deliver his location. He hadn't even recorded the other's front-end license-plate number and Lockdown's look proved that he knew it, tattooed face both amused and expectant. Utterly, comfortably aloof. There would be nothing to gain…but embarrassment. The full story would be forced out.

Prowl exhaled, slow and pained, then twitched his head in an imitation of a nod. Lockdown pressed the button.

"This is… officer four-one-six, I need assistance," Prowl grit out, glaring hard at the featureless dark wall opposite him.

"Request received. Officer four-one-six, where are you located?"

"An alleyway off of—"

He had plunged so far into the city he didn't know; he had ceased to pay attention to streetnames long before the chase-liquor made him follow Lockdown into his trap. Lockdown grinned and mouthed the streetname, then fell to chuckling into his huge hand as Prowl swallowed audibly and spat:

"Lemark and third street."

"We have received your request, a backup unit will be sent immediate—"

Lockdown cut it off and tossed the walkietalkie between Prowl's legs with a clatter.

"Now that I know you're taken care of, I'll get goin'," he sniffed, wiping a hand under his nose and grinning merrily at him. "You keep yourself outta trouble, Prowl. Try not to follow anymore strangers into dark alleyways."

"You will _pay for this_."

It was the only thing to say. He hissed it, vision nearly reddening with the full force of his anger. Lockdown only rolled his beastly-thick neck, popping his spine.

"Damn, but you're a handful. Glad I was right about the handcuffs," he chuckled. "You can use 'em on me next time, darlin'. Promise."

Prowl flinched back as Lockdown suddenly craned forward, his legs twitching up defensively. The cuffs dug horribly into his tingling wrists as the older man snagged his chin in his rough hand and grinned right into his face.

"Provided, o'course, you got probable cause."

Prowl snarled in venomous, suffocating rage as the dragster yanked him forward and mashed his lips noisily against his cheek. Lockdown ended the smooch with a wet pop and rose to his feet to saunter out of the alleyway, rumbling happily to himself. A few minutes later, with the purr of a satisfied gas-guzzler, he was gone. Prowl, the loser of their engine-roar collision, was left cold and humiliated in the middle of an empty alleyway, staring after the impossible man with his swollen heart thudding in his ears. Angry, yes, hurt, possibly—but also painfully, painfully alive, vibrating with undeniable involuntary urges and emotions and force and the rhythm of his blood.

Shaken, Prowl closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, trying to breathe away the phosphorescent, rage-sharpened thrill riding his veins. He waited for the sound of sirens.


	5. Invasion

A/N: Ages, anyone?

Prowl is 23. Optimus is about 27. Bee is a Stupid Hormonal 17. Bulkhead is a Very Serious But Rather Limited 19. Ratchet is 65-something (as in 65 THOUSANNNND). Lockdown is a Very Trim 45, ooh.

God, this thing is such fun to write. I'm SO glad you've taken to my crack and I hope you enjoy the progress! Also, much love to Fayola: whatever the situation is, hon, I dearly hope you get better soon.

* * *

Invasion

* * *

Every Thursday, like clockwork or religion, Prowl did laundry.

He sat with a book while his dark clothing cycled end over end, blocking out the outside world in some chrome and white-lacquered, gently-vibrating, Fresh Mist-scented facsimile of Zen. Every so often people attempted to speak with him, but most of them were over-eager, hard-minded young women who obviously thought it a game to capture the dark, pensive young man who did laundry all alone with a frown and Ernest Hemingway on his lap. What made Laundromats such cesspools of stunted romantic expectations, Prowl had no idea, but he didn't appreciate the interruptions and usually chased them off with canned answers and a strict look.

He had a home and most homes came equipped with washers and dryers, true, but his case was somewhat unique: he and several other dozen officers had moved into old factories and other old city-owned buildings to test out their livability when revamped with basic necessities. It began as nothing more than a municipal ploy to create a beautifully cheap category between 'barrack' and 'apartment' for put-upon college students, but when local officers were offered a discount, it turned into a team-building exercise of sorts warily encouraged by their Chief of Police, Ultra Magnus.

Hopefully, what with the military-style camaraderie encouraged by such close, bare quarters, it would lead to an interconnected family environment, encouraging support and bonding. Cheap as the lodgings were, it attracted more than on-field officers which consequently left micro-manager Optimus with no one else to 'pick on' besides Prowl, as Bulkhead (a sturdy young man working part time at the station to pay off his engineering college) and Ratchet (an eternally grumpy veteran medic who also worked at the station and was known for slapping band-aids over head-wounds just to get the whiners out of his sight) were both too well-behaved or frightening (respectively) to merit lecturing. Of course, that was only when Optimus didn't have his hands full with Bumblebee, a punky young job-hopping blond who had utterly nothing to do with the station but a close-enough blood tie to their local aunt-fearing Prime.

It worked well enough for four years and Prowl could hardly deny the degree of 'closeness' between he and his housemates, but there were utility problems to be considered: the overwhelming concrete didn't make for very heat-conducting environment. The factory-turned-habitat was drafty and bare of certain quasi-essential commodities like washers and dryers. The lack forced members of the team to migrate up a street and three over to do their laundry—or, in Bumblebee's case, pad the floor of his room with his filthy offal until he could be bothered to go out and buy new, ridiculously overpriced clothes.

Normally, 'super happy fun laundry-time' (ala Bumblebee) was a very calming time for Prowl. He exited the ritual with a clean feeling that paralleled his conservative and freshly-folded attire, but today?

No. Just no.

Today, Prowl dug into his clothes and thrust them into the washers, frown firmly set on his face. Even when surrounded by such mundane calm, he still dwelled forcibly on the previous night: the chase, the alleyway and all that came after. Explaining the mess to his new team had been a veritable contortionist's show and an embarrassing first impression beyond that, undermining nearly every confidence they had in his skill. There was, after all, no face-saving explanation for how he could have called in with his arms restrained. Prowl was forced to explain that he had pursued a suspicious man after his walkie-talkie was severed and stolen and was followed into an alleyway and overwhelmed by several of what he could only assume to be the suspect's racing cohorts… who proceeded to cuff him up and force him to call for help.

For reasons unknown, even though he submitted a 'suspicious car' report and filled in the gaudy details of Lockdown's muscle car on pale blue paper (only to throw it into the abyss where dwelt the thousands of other reports, reducing the furious and extraordinarily scribbly motion to nothing more than a precise method of wasting paper), he didn't mention the man himself. Whatever his relation with the criminal, skewed by the fraternization in the bar and the parking lot alike, it was now excruciatingly personal—not a matter for the city or the demanding, skeptical faces of his peers.

Of course there were penalties for assaulting an officer. Property destruction. Prowl could have pressed charges or at least filed a report--but that would have actually required, in triple-copy blue paper and neat script and with details, admitting that it had _happened_, which was quite cataclysmic and infuriating in and of itself. Denial worked quite well for the time being, only fueling his determination to get the man. No, he wanted the fiend solidly and permanently behind bars for what he did best: racing and breaking the common law. He wanted to hit the man where it hurt, not for some petty and ultimately excruciatingly embarrassing bit of manipulation and domination. So he… bided his time and adjusted details where necessary.

This involved a bit of gentle fabrication, naturally—but only for emphasis' sake.

The entire set-up was obviously a prank, Prowl had explained stiffly (it was his first time, crucified at the front of the room by so many dark-suited officers), but he didn't forget to tie it back to the drag-racing circuit. He even found an opportunity to give air to some now-obvious truths: the races were going to occur next week and the circuit knew they were being tracked, and extensively at that. They would have to tread carefully from now on, even if half the officers assumed the shift in awareness to be his fault for getting hacked off about a stolen walkie-talkie.

Prowl stuffed another load into the dryer, slamming the door so fiercely it made a young man jump.

Logic, ever clear and crystalline, made him wonder why he had pursued the other man in the first place. Prowl was as well-briefed on protocol and probable cause as anyone, and moreso beyond that. It was obvious that, even if he caught the man, he would not have had probable cause to try him in a court of law for his crimes. He had no _evidence_—only the strangely personal, coincidental knowledge of Lockdown's 'appendage' choice and clothing. Sure, he was suspicious—forcibly suspicious—but that was where it ended, because Lockdown could technically be nothing more than a very experienced, very eccentric liar with a strange kink-suit and an even stranger car. Why had he taken such pains to follow him into such a dangerous situation after his walkie-talkie was stolen? When he _knew_ the man was at least smart enough not to lead him anywhere he wanted to be led…

It was the anger involved, perhaps, that disturbed Prowl so deeply—which angered him even further. He could practically feel the black emotion clogging his energy highways, stiffening his limbs and his mind and making him _spiral_. Gritting his teeth, he ripped into his softener-scented ritual with thoughts of the alley and his own stupidity, still stuck in that frozen moment before he threw it all in and pursued on foot… then turned around and froze all over again.

Clothed in white-washed jeans and a dark t-shirt and an aneurysm-cloud of utter impossibility, Lockdown leaned atop a nearby washing machine, predatory grin fully in place.

Prowl locked up. First, he thought himself insane; that he was projecting his vengeful sentiments to the point that he was _seeing things_. Then Lockdown—tall, grinning and utterly real—dismounted the washing machine and Prowl nearly hissed in suffocating animosity as the other man _approached him_ with agonizing predictability. Every red blood cell rioted at seeing his quarry and dominator invade this other sun-lit, mundane world, the two realities refusing to mesh. It was strange, how the older man looked so different in the light of day, particularly when meandering toward him in the cheery square-shaped sunlight of the thick-glassed Laundromat windows, but Lockdown only sauntered up and smoothly invaded his personal space by leaning up against the adjoining dryer, crossing his arms. He looked easy and liquid and smirky in those easy liquid smirking clothes--painfully _normal_, even with the tattoos trailing out of the hems like ink-smears of his nightlife.

Prowl didn't speak. He couldn't speak. His vocal chords had fossilized under the unholy pressure of the other's presence, and even then there was _nothing to say_, but Lockdown picked up the slack with an easy grace.

"Well, well, well. It's Tea-kid."

Even with as taunting as it could have been, even with its simplicity, it was as though the previous night had never happened. Easy. Friendly. Interested. Not the first words or tone he had been expecting.

Ears ringing into the cauterized cavern of his head, Prowl popped open the washer and grabbed his clothing out, completely striding past the other man to get to the dryers on the other side of the room. He _followed_. When the young man got there, moving stiffly and burning hideously from the neck up, he realized he had taken too much with him and struggled with opening the door, struggled with keeping his armful intact, motions becoming a tad frantic as life simply _refused to proceed in nonchalant ease_--then a huge, tattooed arm crossed his vision and opened it for him. Caught off-guard, Prowl stumbled and half of his clothing slopped to the floor; vocalizing numbly, he bent and started to cram the wet mess back into his arms, feeling Lockdown's presence like a weight on the back of his neck.

Then the old racer bent down with a creak of too-tight jeans and _helped_.

"Fancy meetin' you here," he purred near his ear. Prowl snatched his hand away as though stung when Lockdown's beast of an appendage came too close, then clutched all of his spilt clothes to his chest and stood up so fast that he nearly struck his head on the open dryer door. Lockdown got to his feet and smirked at him, just watching with a handful of _his_ clothes. Prowl didn't want to reach for them, settling instead for a flinty, kindly-fuck-off canned response he was so good at.

"Hardly."

Even with the equivalent of screaming alarm bells in his throat and head, he could still speak—or perhaps he did so to quiet the unbearable stinging racket or the hammer of his heart in such a harmless public place.

Prowl didn't have his badge on. Lockdown didn't have his suit on. Eventually, he would make the twisted distinction that Lockdown would live by, but at the moment, he had no such mental divider that would save him from brainstem exhaustion and DPD-related agony.

"In the Laundromat, doing laundry, is actually a very common place to be," he grit out. Prowl had very little idea what compelled him to add coldly: "Unlike abandoned parking lots."

Lockdown wasn't listening—or he was, but he didn't think the material important. Instead, he busied himself with sorting through the clothes in his fist, plucking out and inspecting a pair of trim dark blue briefs with an arch of his brow. Prowl's brain nearly spattered the sides of his skull in one painful pulse; hackles snapping to attention, he lurched forward and whipped it out of the freak's hand, face splotching unpleasantly in cream and red. The slithery older man was an expert in catching him off guard. Prowl had no idea how to _react_ to someone handling his underwear in public—was it any crime?

"Was patrol rough last night?" Lockdown asked off-handedly, as though the tone should correspond perfectly with the 'casual' look he was dealing the other. "Y'look a little tired."

Prowl had nothing to say to that, angry vein standing out against the white of his throat as he _stuffed_. Lockdown continued, motioning at him.

"Got rings around your wrists." He snorted, waving his hand. "Eyes, I meant. Heh."

It was so unreal as to be painful, but that snapped Prowl out of it. He finished loading his clothes with a vengeful shove and turned to face Lockdown with an ugly sneer.

"_Leave me be_."

That settled it. This _situation_ made no sense, but if he had to deal with the brute in his job, Prowl saw no reason to deal with him in real life: the bruises he sported from last night, no matter how faint, were enough of a reminder. Ratchet was always telling him to leave his work at the door.

"Don't take it like that. Z'just bein' cordial," Lockdown murmured lightly, once more nullifying Prowl's sizzling rage with an easy rumble. Brushing him off. He closed the dryer door for him and followed him back to his laundry basket, resuming his easy lean. "How's your bike?"

Pause. Long, long frigid pause. Prowl's hands quivered minutely as he sorted more clothes.

"Holdin' up?"

Repetitions wouldn't help. The man wasn't even listening to him. Prowl grit his teeth.

"Holding up," he grunted after a moment.

His bike had actually been running cleaner than he'd ever remembered, but he wasn't about to give the brute the satisfaction. He'd almost forgotten that Lockdown had repaired it for him. Again, that evening seemed to be a two-dimensional picture-show staged in totally different world.

"S'a pretty thing," the other said. "You should take better care of it. Sometimes it takes someone else handlin' your 'equipment' before you—"

"I will have you arrested."

The threat popped up from his gut, spooked out of his adrenaline-charred body by the incoming meteor of the other's words. He knew where it was going. He _knew_ and he glared down into his empty basket to prove it; Lockdown snorted, half-rolling his red eyes.

"For makin' small-talk? Shit, is that a felony or just a misdemeanor? Best run 'fore you accuse me of loiterin'." Lockdown shook his head and straightened himself, turning and flicking a hand over his shoulder and muttering smugly, "I got laundry to do."

And laundry, as it was understood, proceeded. True to form, Lockdown went over and did his laundry, over-stuffing each machine and sending them chugging away, propelled by dirty quarters. His perfectly acceptable conduct didn't stop Prowl from simply _freezing_ every so often and glaring up, feeling far more aggravated to find Lockdown's wide back to him than to catch the monster's reddish eyes flicking away from a stolen leer.

It was beyond agonizing and Prowl only worked himself up more by trying to disregard it. By the end of it, nearly everyone was staring at him in one way or another: he radiated so much jagged hatred and distress that a space soon cleared around him. No one wanted to choose machines close to the paranoid nutjob that kept jerking up and glaring across the Laundromat every five minutes. Prowl, if he weren't the nutjob in question, would have sympathized.

He was at the final stage of folding his laundry when Lockdown craned around from his perch on another thump-thump-thumping machine and blatantly stared until the young man looked up with cold fire behind his angular sunglasses. Prowl snorted and began to gather up his things, stuffing The Green Hills of Africa into the bottom of his basket.

"Hey, kid. You want somethin' done to your bike, you gimme a ring," Lockdown called out as he packed up, giving him a cheeky little salute and drawing the scalding attention of a woman starching a shirt, who looked between them with a confused expression. Prowl boiled. "You know my number."

"Untrue," Prowl snipped, not looking up from his task. He needed to flout the rogue in whatever way he could, even if it was as small a gesture as a piece of paper tied to a bike. He hiked his laundry up against his chest and turned his nose up and walked towards the bell-ornamented door. "I threw it away."

Lockdown just shrugged his massive, tattoo-marred shoulders, looking over his shoulder with a grin.

"Trash day ain't till Tuesday."

_Jingle-jingle_.


	6. Definition of Harassment

A/N:…Why do Bumblebee's little interruptions continue to be the highlight of my day? He's just such a freakin' PUNK! But god, Prowl is so… awkward and miserable. He breaks my wee heart!

Also, I do not condone stalking and technically Lockdown is stalking Prowl. But… not really. The man's just hideously determined, quite clever, thinks Prowl is funny as hell (in a bad way) and loves to provoke him, and knows he's not gonna get the kid to talk to him any other way. So… now you know both sides XD

PS: Prowl doesn't go to another Laundromat because a) he's granted wash-tokens as a part of his lease for _that particular Laundromat_ because the old factory is ghetto and they know they ghetto and b) he's a prideful little bugger. His Zen-schedule CANNOT BE CORRUPTED, laundry must continue every Thursday at 5!

Also, hehe. Just… hehe. A cameo! Now I'm thinking Anicon's alt-mode is a freaking washing machine… It fits. Don't lie.

* * *

Definition of Harassment

* * *

It was a pity that doing laundry wasn't a legal offense.

Dirty clothes themselves were rather mundane and expected, but _Laundromats_ were a superbly effective tool—or trap—that Prowl couldn't even begin to fathom until he went to do laundry the next week… and nearly dropped his basket at the sight of Lockdown folding washed-out clothes across the room, equipped with discount bleach and a goading smile. The young man almost turned tail and walked out, but he had already caught the _challenge_, clear as though it were tattooed on the other's face alongside the black claws: the dare to run away. Prowl was no such wilting creature. Mustering up a chilly aura (with a brusque engagement of his Zen glands, no doubt), Prowl set his jaw and strode to the first open machine and did his damn business.

Within minutes, a wary circle (mirroring Lockdown's own tattoo- and muscle-earned 'wide berth') had cleared around him and Lockdown invaded it, time and time and time again.

"You got a quarter?"

"No."

"Got a minute, then?"

"This is the last time I will say this politely. _Leave me alone_."

Again and again, they ran in circles, the other man's smug, unflappable rhythm nearly sending him off the handle more than once. Laundry time, formerly an escape, had become an hour and a half of torture with the (alleged) dragracer lurking in his periphery with an empty detergent cup and an equally empty, smirking question on his lips. It was a complex shame that Prowl's pride was so colossal: too overwhelming, at the least, to submit an official report of an invasive old man following him around—or one who at least 'happened' to do laundry at the same place as he did and refused to have his hopes for _conversation_ quelled.

The man had no boundaries. He took no hints.

Prowl, who lived his life in subtlety and nonverbal or minimalist communication, was shocked at the stony direct commands the racer managed to _pass by_ with a flick of his mammoth hands and several more seconds of unwavering eye-contact. Then that… _grin_. He was toying with the young officer, surely: otherwise, he wouldn't reek of that filthy, rooting-pig-style enjoyment, but his casual abuse didn't stop there. One Thursday (his third, he had been dealing with this for _three consecutive weeks_) Prowl drifted off to the bathroom. Already well acquainted with the rogue's lack of decency, he stopped and asked an older woman to please keep an eye on his belongings while he used the restroom? She would.

Obviously he hadn't taken into account the fact that any sane woman with an ounce of self-preservation wouldn't be willing to talk down a six-foot-three, tattoo-marred skin-head for sake of a cellphone, even if in the anonymous protection of a public facility. He came out of the bathroom to find Lockdown with _his_ mobile phone angled his gigantic hands, flicking through something with a look of concentration. Brain once again spattering the inside of his skull with a sick pop, Prowl stormed up and snatched it out of his hands, but it was too late.

"Is it four-three-nine-seven-five-five-five, or…? Is that three fives at the end?"

Prowl could only gape. Lockdown chuckled, saluted him and creaked off in his too-tight jeans to swap his whites to the dryer. Then he just… did his laundry. Just. Like. Always.

Upon returning home, the first thing Prowl did was try to dig the brute's number out of the afore-flaunted trash can (earning himself a very, very odd look from Bulkhead when the young man came by to dump out some of his paint water), fail miserably because trash day _was_ last-last Tuesday, wish that he had kept it just so he could block the other first, run and roll around in his bed at how utterly immature he was being and how much this was truly _bothering him_, then sulk for the rest of the day while waiting for the anvil to fall on his head.

Just like the first time he showed up in the Laundromat, the fact that the scoundrel _had_ his number was more a source of wrenching anxiety than what Lockdown actually did with it: fully tensed and prepared for vile, provocative drunk-dialing at two am, Prowl was nearly insane by the time, three days later, Lockdown texted him at a healthy, normal five pm.

_--you ever go 2 bars or was that jst a fluke?_

It seemed almost coy, coming from a stalker. Prowl, vicious with stress, amused himself (in a too-brief, snarling way) by mentally picking apart the text for incorrect grammar or spelling errors or just plain failure, then blocked the number so fast it surely made Lockdown's damn mechanical hand fritz on the other end.

The only flaw in his plan? The racer had a scrambler. Two days later, Prowl got another text. From another number. In… Florida?

_--got your book tea kid_

After a brief inventory of his impeccably arranged room, he realized he had forgotten his book at the Laundromat. Understandable: once he got to a certain stage of abuse (say, the point that his cell-phone was stolen and rifled through), he was nearly hysterical to get out of the place before he blew up at the man in public. That led to… not double-checking the contents of his laundry basket. Fuming, he wrote off the book as a loss, blocked that number and the next one after that. Then he_ blocked the next one_, but it was to no avail.

Regardless of his other excesses, Lockdown was an efficient criminal. He never called, perhaps because, while stubborn, he wasn't _stupid_ and he knew if he did so he would be hung up on immediately. He only dropped the odd thought every so often. The only way Prowl even knew it was Lockdown was a) no one else texted him and b) it was just _obvious_.

The next Dreaded Thursday, Prowl was approached once again--but not by his resident albino tormentor.

"Do you… know that man?"

Prowl looked up from his _new_ book, blinking blankly. Wary as he was of anyone approaching him _at all_, the voice, meek and mild, simply wasn't Lockdown's gravel-in-a-bucket growl. Instead, a boy—young man—was standing in front of him and a little to the left, as though he didn't dare fully invade Prowl's visual field. In reality, his visitor had been there for weeks, loitering in the back of the building with his fresh polo shirts and khakis, but he was so pale he had blended seamlessly into the glossy white curvatures of the Laundromat environment. He smiled nervously.

"H-hi. I just—it seems like he's… bothering you."

"Grievously," Prowl answered after a moment, then inspected him. Sharp-looking clothes, slender build, perhaps a few years younger than himself. The young man waited attentively, short, somewhat foppish white-blond hair glowing in the slanting sunbars. "Do not concern yourself. He will tire of it."

"Well, I—I mean, that's… if he's bothering you like that, we could tell the police?"

"They are already well-informed," he said dryly and went back to his book without another word. Seconds passed. They were shuffling, staring seconds, unbeknownst to text-absorbed Prowl, but seconds nonetheless. Then:

"I'm Anicon."

Prowl looked up again, snapped out of the orderly, textured world of his current paragraph; somewhat startled that the other hadn't wandered off as implied or encouraged. Why would he stay? Forced by the awkward silence and the boy's big expectant eyes, he offered his hand.

"Prowl."

He shook the other's small hand, which 'Anicon' then stuck in his pockets. He smiled.

"Good, um… good choice."

"Concerning?" Prowl asked blankly.

"Hemingway," the other mumbled, blue eyes flickering off into some corner. "The Sun Also Rises' is my favorite. It's wonderful."

"Yes," Prowl said insightfully after a moment, unable to do more than stare at this incomprehensible creature trying to approach him with _literature_ of all things while simultaneously badgering him away from his books. Anicon squirmed under his scrutiny, finally chuckling and fiddling with his hair.

"So do you… do you come here, ah, often?" he joked, face pinkening pathetically--and then the proverbial light bulb went off in Prowl's head.

He knew there was something different about this boy: something in the careful fidgeting and the timidity (uncalled for, as Prowl wasn't imposing simply _off-putting_) and the warm weight of his attention. His soft-mouth, shy-eyed _interest_. None of that impartial, flippant masculine banter here: this was not a brash yellow Bumblebee breed of male but a wilting, coy specimen, unused to sunlight and alcohol and football.

The aforementioned light bulb, thankfully, was also connected to a rusty mental device called the Gaydar. It lit up with a disused and rather alarmed creak, synthesized all the symptoms and Prowl finally, finally realized he was being flirted with. By a young man. In a Laundromat. Via Hemmingway.

He blinked. Anicon, newcomer and twice as pink and looking as though he didn't know whether to turn tail and run or stay and fidget, blinked back. Stalling, Prowl took to staring at some framed postcard (yellow-spattered San Francisco under a purple sky) across the Laundromat, not knowing what precisely to do to chase male pursuers off—because if he ever thought about it (and he didn't), he wasn't gay.

Rather, of course he wasn't gay. He wasn't… anything. He preferred the term asexual if it was ever talked about (which it wasn't), because anybody who met him took one look at his disinterested sterility and uptight conduct and automatically couldn't see him naked... or at all indecent or sweating in a ridiculous position, or anything of the uncontrolled panting undignified sort.

His surgical non-involvement was assumed. People—observant people who knew him—acted accordingly. They never tried and he never had to decline. It was a self-perpetuating cycle of silence, certainly, but it worked. His life was much less awkward for it.

Then there were those who couldn't imagine a life unruled by the dumb inarticulate urges of genitalia. Bumblebee, for example, and occasionally Ratchet, who had once told him to go out and get himself screwed—or perhaps that was more incorrectly phrased 'disrespectful young people' insult than order. Still, they urged him. They pressed at him, goaded him to 'get a girl' and offered the occasional double pity-date: nothing more than shallow, eye-contact-molested farce of a conversation and a fifty-dollar loss. In some ways, it was though he had never escaped high school--

Refocusing, Prowl cleared his throat and said something vague and slightly dismissive, resettling his bookmark and thumbing the pages. Far from taking his colossal nonverbal hints, the young man moved closer and started making conversation with new vigor. _Lamentable_. Prowl was beginning to go a little insane at the inadequacy of his most prized form of communication, but it all came down to the fact that most plebeians seemed to be unaware of the social-cue language as a whole, or simply didn't know how to use their _eyes_. The encounter proceeded.

Anicon, apparently, was a student at the University of Detroit Mercy and majoring in botany. His father was a businessman, hastily skipped over. He admired law enforcers and blushed frequently. Uncomfortable in a way he didn't see fit to vocalize, Prowl nodded and murmured along with his precious book in hand, so wrapped up in his current conundrum that he nearly forgot about the other threat lurking out of sight.

But of course, it was a Thursday and it was the Burgundy Bird Laundromat—which was nothing more than a coy synonym for 'Personal Hell', apparently.

Prowl felt his approach before he saw it. Striding across the white floor, thumbs hooked indolently in his thread-bare pockets, Lockdown advanced like a storm cloud, black pressure and acidic tingles included. The 'ninjacop' tensed, swamped with the foreboding factor of a pedestrian situated between their messy, immature feud—or the possibility that the racer would somehow make gruesome use of his new 'angle' and embarrass him further. Anicon noticed his paralysis: he looked over and caught sight of the brute, unreal with his dark clothes and sharp tattoos among all the busy quiet housewives and college students. The young man's pretty face bleached.

Anicon was roughly half the size of Lockdown and gazed at the older man as though he'd never seen a piercing, much less a vicious old dragster with a missing tooth and (although he didn't know) a mechanical hand. It was altogether surprising, then, what happened next. When Lockdown got within distance and Prowl drew breath to fend him off as his gut turned to stone, Anicon actually slid off the washing machine and straightened, hastily balling his hands into fists. Prowl's mouth popped open.

"Excuse me." He glared at the huge—underline _huge_—man, neck already a woeful shade of rose. "Do you n-need something?"

"Actually, yeah. Was gonna ask your friend somethin'," Lockdown answered after a slow, staring second, red eyes drifting to find Prowl's as if to say, where did you find this snot rag guard dog? Prowl convulsively hunched and half hid his face, paralyzed by the other's sly amusement because he knew where it was going because Anicon was drawing breath--

"Then be quick about it," he snapped shrilly. Prowl, retracting his arm before he reached out and _grabbed_ for the other young man, bit his lip and felt his heart sink and crash on the planes of his stone gut. The little scientist took another quivering breath and launched off again, deadly solemn. "And in the f—um, you should really quit bothering him. I can s-see that he isn't--I would appreciate it if you would leave us--h-him--alone. Now."

Being as the quintessential Laundromat was possibly one of the quietest places on the planet when not interrupted by the advances of vagabonds or well-meaning but unwanted intellectuals, the interaction of those two toxic forces couldn't have possibly gone unnoticed among the other laundering denizens of Detroit. For a long, long moment, every eye in the building was focused on them and, consequently, Prowl. The ninja's insides twisted into nauseated knots, ears burning as he waited for Lockdown's reaction.

He didn't disappoint.

Taking full advantage of the ringing silence, Lockdown suddenly erupted into a loud, long laugh: it practically overwhelmed the limited white confines of the building, setting everyone to stare at each other. It was only a few seconds worth of mirth, but it was enough; then he stepped forward—certainly on purpose, certainly with an added muscle-taut lunge—and Anicon jerked back with a strangled noise, face bright pink. His back bumped against a washer; Lockdown smirked at him from a healthy five-foot distance and the young man looked down, exhaling shakily. Lockdown turned his attention to Prowl with another step and his smirk only widened alongside a little shake of his head.

Prowl, mortified, watched wordlessly as the older man reached back and pried something out of his back pocket, only to hand him the anthology he had left there the week before.

"Just gonna fetch you your book back, kid," he rumbled lightly, then gestured to the noble brown-bound collection. "Though I gotta say, bad taste. Couldn't get past the first few bits."

Prowl's mouth stayed open until Lockdown trundled back to his own washer, looking back with an amused, dry expression before simply continuing his business. The young man's gaze drifted down to the book, world whiting out.

"I'm… sorry. That didn't—I didn't mean it to come out like that. H-he should leave you be."

The apology, faint and squeezed, made him look up at the other young man for a moment. He took in Anicon's earnest, pink face, then shook his head.

"Please leave."

"Wh—I'm sorry?"

"Please," he murmured miserably, long, fine-boned face bowed toward his book. "I want to read."

It was incredible, that an hour and a half could produce so much chaos.

Even after four Thursdays of it, Prowl never imagined it would get this bad… or that he would be so _susceptible_ to such immature, attention-seeking tomfoolery. _Harassment_. Add to that the fact that he was technically searching for the man every night and would have cherished encountering him in one environment and dreaded him in every other—it was impossible to keep his head on straight sometimes. Even his practice failed to offer him solace.

Instead of his 'soothing' daily rituals drowning out the disturbance and enfolding him in structured peace, they only seemed to exaggerate it and turn his whole life on its end. Lockdown, dense and inflammatory, was the only thing worthy of notice in an endless rotation of patrol, lunch, meditation, reading and so on, even with new, equally miserable distractions materializing at home… such as Bumblebee booby-trapping his computer with very explicit, very gay pornography. He'd actually cried out upon seeing the fourth horrific installment in full 1280x800 glory on his desktop, flinging his hands in front of his eyes: the answering cackle further down the hallway was all the proof he needed to storm out and give the teen a good shake and a better talking-to.

Bee, of course, ran like the dickens as soon as he heard footsteps and it escalated to put boiling acid to shame. The adrenaline-fueled, arms-tucked-close, sharp-corner chase around the old factory actually made the emotionally besieged officer feel better: it got him sweating and brought his anger rocketing to the surface, because his housemate was a fast little smear when he was (by that time) in fear for his life. Unfortunately, his very prey-like stumbles and gasps resulted in the dooming release of Prowl's inner ninja-wolf… who only heeled when sated.

He ended up reversing track, surprising Bumblebee around a corner. The teenager literally shrieked and scrabbled backwards, but Prowl tripped him and wrestled him into a twist-hold, promptly and firmly jabbing his knee into the teen's narrow back. Young face crammed against the concrete after the sharp impact, 'BB' needed little more than a quietly poisonous "That was very disrespectful" before he was almost whining and crying his apologies, arching into the hold to keep it from hurting him, round face pink as a posie. First pressing him into the concrete to made the information _settle_, Prowl then released him, leaving the scrub to limp back to his room with his tail between his asphalt-smeared legs and his idea of 'acceptable prank' aching from a solid redefinition.

Satisfied down to his bones, Prowl got to his feet and looked up to see Ratchet eyeing him from the garage, but the old veteran only shook his head and went back to washing the equally old, out-of-commission emergency vehicle he called his own. Prowl had a sneaking feeling that it was only because the old man understood the urge to discipline Bumblebee (and believed that everyone needed to get knocked around once in a while _and_ he couldn't catch the little brat himself) that he was getting away with the overt act of bullying… but it was no wonder his housemates thought he had been acting odd lately. By any and all definitions, he was.

Perhaps that explained why one day, after five solid weeks of being _stalked_ and stared at and texted, Prowl decided to do something about it all. It was the opposite of what he should have done, most certainly, but he was at the end of his rope and this illogical behavior simply couldn't continue. The man had to be shooting for something, a goal, that Prowl had yet to even acknowledge: part of his pain stemmed from the fact he had yet to acknowledge the entire debacle was happening_ at all_. So he finally… agreed.

"What do I have to do?"

It wasn't the wisest question to ask, but he also knew that the strange older man had the tiniest bit of tact—or style disguised as tact. The question, while open, demanded a straightforward answer and that was what Prowl needed: to get that answer and proceed to tear it up and work it down to something he could swallow. Put this 'experience' into brackets, give it _boundaries_.

But of course, Lockdown had to draw it out.

"For what?" he asked indolently, sitting on the washer next to his with a car magazine and a paint-speckled mug of tar-black coffee—the latter far too close to Prowl's freshly-washed whites.

"To get you to leave me be," the officer answered icily.

He didn't need to lower his voice. The Laundromat's normal occupants either congregated at the other end of the room or had stopped coming altogether on Thursday at five pm: the two, unfortunately and understandably, were always _quite_ alone. Lockdown just looked at him, a combination of pseudo-hurt and amusement layering his beastly face as thick and smug as icing. Prowl recollected himself and forced his hackles up, raising a finger and hissing, "I am giving you a chance to end this cleanly and cease your _campaign_ before I press charges. Under my personal rights and any conditions therein, this could _easily_ be qualified as harassm—"

"'Kay, Primus, I give. Can't fight the jargon," Lockdown huffed, seeming genuinely irked at the reappearance of the young man's frigid language. He shook his head and passed his (bad) hand over his tattooed skull, making Prowl's nose wrinkle from a now-common rush of musky cologne and, today, coffee. "Fine. You'n me. Your choice of place, after six, food involved--and no less than two hours."

…Oh Primus.

It could not possibly be. He couldn't say what he expected—perhaps a foul and explicit proposal and a comfortingly immediate refusal, an offense tangible enough to _seek a lawful solution_ or just a _joke_--but it was certainly not that. And certainly not… stated so cleanly by a born _negotiator_.

"What?" Prowl hissed, eyes wide.

"Just wanna hang out. Talk some."

Lockdown guzzled down the appalled look on the young man's narrow face with a smarmy grin, knowing, from his look, how very like a lame teenager he sounded, plying the prissy girl of his choice on a not-really-date. Then he grinned, flicking Prowl's chest.

"Social call. Ain't a crime—n'if it were, I'd need you round anyways. Keep me in check, y'know," he said and _winked_. "Might just be rumor, but I hear I get up to some pretty crazy shit at night. Nothin' you'd be interested in, though."

It was then that Prowl knew: his lack of evidence on this man (alongside his pathetic almost-puns) was going to be the death of his sanity. The young officer ended up gathering up his thankfully-clean clothes and storming out in a hopeless huff, beyond offended and, most importantly, stunned. He needed to get into the closed environment of his room and _think_, and get out from under those appraising reddish eyes.

Two hours later, things didn't make much more sense.

He wanted to end it, no doubt. Desperately. But there was, after all, the chance Lockdown could be lying. There were dozens of horrible and unwanted scenarios that could play out when alone with the man for a two-hour period—two hours wasn't long, but it was _enough_. Then there was the fact of what the _man was_, or how it would look to be seen alone with him especially after Bumblebee falsely (but with great grandeur) 'outed' him to the whole house. The entire situation was beyond lamentable and didn't seem any better laying face-up on his rock-hard, cream-sheeted bed, but the lure of the obnoxious scoundrel leaving him alone…

Had he really attempted to read some of the anthology?

His cellphone beeped three times, making his tired heart sink. Inwardly groaning (because he didn't even have the Zen-focus to ignore such earthly tortures), he reached for it with heavy hands, slapping down, grabbing and flipping it open. It was a new number, of course, but the green-on-black text was unmistakable.

_--I mean it tea kid. you n me no funny business. scouts honor_

Prowl, surely only because he was exhausted and disheartened and frazzled to death, had to stall at that. His was a simple enough request, really, and much more palatable when it wasn't being badgered out of him in public. The strange, middle-aged rascal wanted a civil conversation from him, then nothing more. No more harassment, no more contact; Lockdown's curiosity would be satisfied (or his lechery formally apprehended) and his own life would be restored to normal. It was also the second time Lockdown had promised a lack of 'funny business'—and hadn't he upheld that promise the first time, when Prowl was defenseless on his couch?

Letting his cellphone tumble out of his hands and hit the floor, Prowl lay back into his pillows, thoroughly exhausted, and fell asleep in a series of jerks and exhalations, wondering how on earth it became so easy to rationalize surrender to a deviant and his twisted whims when his personal shields had lowered far enough to let all the weird little bike-repairing kindnesses in and all he wanted to do was _sleep_.

Things would seem more logical in the evening. The road always helped him think. He only hoped he wouldn't run into Lockdown before he'd reached a decision—or the end of his patrol.


	7. Undercover

A/N: So, I don't know anything about legal process. I should. But I don't. Which is… detrimental to writing about a police officer. I asked my papa (an attorney) about some of this stuff, so there's gonna be stupidly specific crap then loads of vague crap, but just bear with me. This is kind of a transition chapter and the next one will ROCK YOUR SOCKS OFF.

Also, keep your eyes open for direct quotes from the cartoon :D I love doing that stuff. OH OPTIMUS, you have such an authority wedgie. Love you.

(And no fretting allowed! Ani is GONE. He just had to make an appearance to tease out Prowl's confession of 'asexuality'. Now he's run back to… I don't know, cruising up-scale gay clubs with a tiny pink martini in hand? Oh that over-moneyed fairy. No-o-o-o sir, I'm 'bout ready to murder him in Partners, he is NOT making another appearance here.)

* * *

Undercover

* * *

Eventually, after waking up a hour late for his shift due to the unplanned nap and faced with another night of endless and introspective black streets, Prowl finally came up with an excuse he liked.

It was not one to avoid Lockdown's social call: if he squirmed out, his hunter would only double his efforts and his negotiated end-of-harassment window would close, likely forever. No, this very special excuse allowed him to go through with the proposed 'deal' and pretend he wasn't doing it at all. At least, not how Lockdown wanted.

It all came down to their societal _roles_, which the older man was underestimating quite tragically. Regardless of their inane Laundromat interactions, Prowl was a law enforcer and Lockdown broke the law on a regular and quite prideful basis: that basic dynamic demanded moral recompense. It required _action_, which, for very confusing and aggravating reasons and despite their continued interactions, Prowl hadn't been able to deliver yet.

The only reason he hadn't already brought Lockdown into the station, cuffed and tagged, was due to the fact his case wouldn't hold in court without such weak evidence, especially alongside the new selective legislation passed concerning the drag-racing circuit. Securing the racing offenders was top priority due to the amount of property damage and large-scale gambling they attracted but after the case became so high-profile in the news, it became a very popular brag-line.

"I'm a racer in the circuit"… so announced to an attentive group of girls and boys in a diner by a singularly cocky and leather-jacketted jock—where a cop usually happened to be in the next booth over, possibly eating dinner with his family.

The Detroit Police Department had brought in so many sweating, protesting adolescent boys (boasting nothing more than lemons and old station wagons) that it was damaging to morale, process and the bookkeeper's sanity. It clogged up the station and weighed on everyone involved. The would-be criminals were let go within hours of their 'capture' and were probably deemed far cooler after their brief tryst with the law (enabling them to quickly secure that piece of ass they were bent on hooking) but it caused the court to state that no one could be brought in without solid evidence accompanying a vehicle description.

Otherwise there was no case, because every time they got someone—a real one, often as braggarty as the young fakes--they always had an alibi, a smooth tongue and an utter unwillingness to let go of any information. It was a very, very tight circus. All the DPD could do was hope to bust one mid-race and gather up the scattered criminals, offering them bailouts for selling out the rest of their friends. It was their only hope: otherwise, they just watched. Prowl had made sure to inform his superiors that his 'band of vagabonds' had said something about the races being next week, so the patrol had been doubled but that was the most he or any of them could do.

But this? A casual chance to be alone with a sleazy and loose-tongued drag racer who, for whatever reason, had _taken a liking_ to him seemed the closest any faceless officer had ever come to cracking the circuit conundrum. Prowl could make use of it, provided he just play along. The idea of indulging the old ruffian for the purpose of extracting vital information from his bloated ego appealed to Prowl far more than skulking into what was technically a homoerotically-charged social hostage situation with his shoulders up to his ears. His internal three-sixty enabled him to return Lockdown's latest text with a confident list of demands—an Italian café on Miriam street, seven on a Wednesday. Lockdown agreed.

But he couldn't be stupid about it. The older man was still a threat (Prowl couldn't be paid to forget the alleyway incident) and the young officer was obligated to, at the very least, inform someone where he was going and with whom—if just to have someone privy to the situation to call in if something went very, very wrong.

* * *

"The man who repaired my motorcycle."

"Wh—Prowl?"

It was funny, how the first person he had to go to was the last person he wanted to, but he could hardly count on someone like Bumblebee to back him up in any way shape or form. The rest of his housemates were out of the question: Bulkhead, wringing his hands, would run to Prime and Ratchet would do the same after a tirade centering on his flagrant stupidity. No, even with their strained relations of late, even with Prowl's inherent (if subtle) dislike for the man, there was simply no other option but strict, noble Optimus Prime.

"Uh. What about him?" the elder officer asked after an awkward minute, swiveling his computer chair around and frowning at the young man in his doorway. To him, that incident had occurred weeks ago, devoid of any sticky laundry-centered aftershocks. Prowl kept it simple, hardly wanting to say any more than was necessary—especially when Prime took interruptions very personally. Not as an offense, mind, but as a discreet cry for help from any one of his housemates. That kind of _personally_. He took a steadying breath.

"I have reason to believe he may be part of the drag-racing circuit."

The Prime's frown deepened; he tapped his pen against his 'fabio-boy' lips.

"How so?"

"He was dressed suspiciously and bragged openly about it."

"That sounds like a confession," Optimus allowed confidently-enough, even if the 'evidence' sounded painfully flimsy and elementary coming out in a single sentence. It was the same cry that dozens of officers the city over had offered. Prowl had more evidence in the form of long-faded bruises on his chest, but he couldn't make use of it.

"You are aware of the rules. No evidence, no case—but I do admit he is a suspicious person and will be watched," Prowl murmured stiffly, stalling a moment under his superior's perplexed look before crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. "Which is why I am accepting his offer of 'socializing' tonight."

"Wait, _what_? You haven't—he's contacted you? I thought that was—that was weeks ago!"

"It was."

"And you're going… alone?"

"Yes."

"No. Prowl, that's—that's beyond unsafe," Optimus protested, fitting all of the freestanding conditions together in his head into one solid picture and, from the look on his handsome face, arriving at a very undesirable conclusion. "Why did you _agree_ to this? You aren't undercover! And you know how—if he is part of the circuit, he has to know you're an officer. You don't suspect he may be leading you somewhere?"

"They have never shown violence towards officers, only quick retreats. Again, it is only a suspicion and I am technically following a lead: a lead that can't be qualified as a lead without evidence."

"No violence? You were ambushed and roughed up in an alley by those guys, how can you say that?"

Prowl bit back his defensive retort (because that was _different_—and at the same time precisely the thing he should be worried about) and pushed on, clenching his fists and hiding the violent hand-knots in his leather jacket.

"He's an exhibitionist and I believe he will slip somewhere. I will bring a recorder. We will meet at the Italian café on Miriam from seven to nine. All I ask is that you keep your cell-phone nearby during that timeframe. I will also abstain from alleyways and abandoned warehouses, ride my motorcycle there and keep my wits around me: I'm _well aware_ of the possibilities, Optimus. I'm simply informing you so you know of my whereabouts."

The two stared at each other, Prowl's flinty glare obscured by the indecipherable, ice-blue shield of his sunglasses. The air was bitter and tense with aftershocks of a crash between two strong, strict minds, but already the dust was settling and Optimus had to cope with what ever-logical Prowl was obviously determined to walk into.

"Why… are you telling me this?" the elder asked helplessly after a long, long moment, hands out.

Even though it directly related to their jobs as officers, it was off-record and completely unprofessional. Something he, as a Prime and a fellow officer, could do nothing about because technically Prowl was free to socialize with whomever he desired when off the books. The Prime put a hand to his head, grimacing with the weight of a fatal design flaw. He never suspected that Magnus' living-in 'barracks' experiment would lead to things he couldn't record—like the danger of one of his teammates.

"Why? In case something _does_ happen," Prowl answered coolly, turning to leave, "and I require your help in securing what will be a very doomed criminal."

"That's all the responsibility you're going to take for your safety? Prowl, what's gotten into you lately? This isn't like you," Optimus insisted, raising his head to half-glare at the younger man. "You've been—I don't know, irritable, immature—"

"I know what I'm doing," Prowl snapped, dealing his own fierce look before striding out of his superior's room, arms straight at his sides. Optimus rose from his seat, stumbling slightly as his foot caught on the rollers. He stepped to the empty doorway.

"Prowl? _Prowl_."

Neither was very happy with the other and it was only the beginning of a basic disagreement that would expand to somehow-explosive proportions. But what else was there to do? Stand around and… allow Lockdown to provoke him? Even if the 'social call' didn't lead to anything he could use in the office, it would quell the man's curiosity, end their non-consensual trysts… and Prowl doubted very, very much that any harm would come to him.

Discomfort in spades, yes, but few had ever died of that. Meanwhile, he had an hour to get ready and he still hadn't charged the recorder.

* * *

Lockdown continued to surprise him in the most abhorrent of ways.

Prowl had been ready for many, many things. He had prepared himself, riding over, for any slightly thrilling undercover squirm-outs he would have to pull. He mulled over the correct questions to plant to get dense, prideful Lockdown talking; he brought an extra fifty which was to go towards buying the other alcohol. He had honestly been ready to fight off an attempt on his life… or his chastity. All of his mental preparations set as heavy and bitter as iron filings in his marrow, weighing every movement because he was _ready for everything_—but only everything within a certain expected scope of ruffian behavior. This? This was the last thing he expected.

"You gonna keep that sucker on or are we gonna have some fun?"

The evening was utterly normal.

Too normal to detail, too normal to note dialogue; nothing but a mundane blur. Sitting at a small table in a nice-enough button-down shirt (it had very little to do with Lockdown and much more to do with _being in public_), Prowl set to his task with just the right amount of casual, smooth energy. He browsed for openings in their choppy male conversation, devising ways to sap the other of every last scrap of information. Unfortunately, Lockdown didn't accept the wine offer… and proceeded to ignore him or change the subject with an unflappable smirk whenever he seemed anywhere close to unearthing anything important. Prowl's own subtlety was a curse, but even when he, aggravated after an hour of dead-ends and at the end of his rope, asked several things outright, Lockdown still found a way around them. Unwilling to admit he was over his head, the young man had been so nervous he hadn't slept well the previous night, unable even to meditate the rattling apprehension away from his tense muscles. In the end, after his tense disagreement with his Prime, he was actually exhausted. Too exhausted, even, to keep up his chilly façade.

Lockdown, on that unnervingly _date-like_ occaision, squirmed in. He didn't try to touch. He didn't try to gouge at the cold, uptight officer as was his usual fare: he just spoke.

In speaking and communicating and chatting while reclining in that miniscule café chair, he beat all the curiosity out of the younger man, reinforcing with hopeless reality the insubstantial nature of his fiercely guarded accusations. Most of all, he simply let him know that _it_—under-the-table espionage, an excuse for their brushing-knees night--wasn't going to happen; let him know that, from the beginning, even back in his garage when Lockdown offered to take him along to a race… it was never going to happen. Despite his lax, impudent manner, smirking steel girders lined the man's lazily-arranged bones: he was in control and horribly perceptive and no amount of alcohol and flattery would loose his tongue in a way that mattered. It was hopeless and, in the end as in the beginning, within that hour Prowl was left with little more than a dinner date with his five-week, cigar-smoking, laundry-laundering enemy.

That hard fact left him alone with the man himself, who grew up in Tennessee to a single father and a small town; who worked on and off as a freelance mechanic and could install and equip anything without so much as instructions; who paid for Prowl's barely-touched pansotti pasta dinner with unsubtle flair and unnerving eye-contact and didn't get as much as a thank you.

The recorder hummed on and on and on and on.

"Walk you to your bike?"

His glare was enough of an answer to the horribly un-sly, normal, _nice_ question. As with everything snotty and arrogant he did, like snatching his jacket from his chair and leaving the full, dark bottle of cheap wine heavy on the table, Lockdown took it with a simple shrug and an easy pursing trundle. There were no further words. Once straddling his purring bike, Prowl wrenched his gloves on and boiled, watching from narrowed eyes as Lockdown (dressed in a trim blue t-shirt and unripped jeans, white arms unaffected by the now-bitter cold Detroit air) meandered over and slid into his other-life car, his gaudy, screaming _evidence_… Watching Lockdown roll down the blood-red windshield and lean out with a gap-toothed grin, Prowl knew.

"Thanks, kid. Good luck on findin' a new laundry buddy."

This wasn't the end.

It couldn't be, not when there was no _relief_ when the vagabond finally vanished from sight; not when Lockdown winked and drove off with a smug, smug rumble as though everything—food, unwilling conversationalist, refused wine and chilly parting alike--had gone according to _plan_. Prowl, as a rule, didn't take well to two very specific things: defeat and confusion. Lockdown embodied both in an immovable, unfathomable intrusion into his placid, chillingly boring life and that intrusion would not go unpunished—or unsolved. With horrible immediacy, taking root no sooner than he had pulled out from the café parking lot, a quick, somewhat mad ember expanded in the young man's mind, heating his blue blood back to a determined bubble. It told him to wait a week and choose his words carefully, because the last thing Lockdown would be expecting was a request from _him_ and 'off guard' brought him one step closer to what he needed from the man.

This would not end with his defeat.


	8. Out

A/N: Oh Optimus, you drove him to it! It's YOUR FAULT. … We love you so much.

Thank you so much, Sesca3, for giving me the idea for Torque! More OCs, yes, but oh my god, the gal is crazy. And I also want to date her…? Hmmmm. In this, she's most certainly all woman, but she also can't have children which kills her D: Brief bout with cervical infection left her sterile and she's a mostly-lesbian because men are icky. I wrote most of her part while listening to 'Maneater' by Nelly on loop. The rhythm fits SO WELL.

I hope no one will be disappointed D: My sock-rocking order was pretty high and I hope this lives up to it. Also, I think I secretly ship human Blurr/Bumblebee. But only human. SHAME, I HAS IT.

* * *

Out

* * *

He could hardly wait a week.

While Prowl was a creature of control, he was also a creature of perfection and the pressure of the perfect execution (and constant reinventions and stridently-ignored _uncomfortable aspects_) of his plan drove him to distraction. He was not quite in his right mind, especially when it became obvious that the races were indeed _not_ the week Lockdown had claimed they were and his lead and the resulting doubled patrol amounted to nothing. The rest of his team, Sentinel included, was… not happy. Prowl actually found himself ducking glances; the tension was palpable and he once again found himself 'the stupid new kid' in an office he had worked at for four years.

It was a bit maddening, then, that his pursuit of Lockdown actually seemed a pleasurable, productive distraction after the monotony and tension at work. True to his word, Lockdown had not attempted to contact him.

He did not show up at the Laundromat on Thursday. Five pm was nothing but quiet white and softly swirling clothing. Prowl's phone remained empty. Very empty.

It was shocking to simply walk into a void and know that the rogue had been _sincere_ and truly removed himself by the roots, but the young officer was beginning to get a grip on the man; he could sense _something_ off of Lockdown, be it a skewed version of honor… or simple practicality. So when he had to breech the silence between them (which involved unblocking Lockdown's number, a scary thing in itself) he appealed to the other's patchy generosity and his own bad manners.

_--Thank you for paying for my dinner._

The text sat in blue cyberspace for five nerve-wracking hours before he got a response.

_--didn't eat much of it_

Prowl wasn't one for small-talk, even when seducing an enemy.

_--You intrigue me_.

_--flattery isnt worth much kid_

The blank-screen silence stretched on. Prowl, marrow practically vibrating with his suppressed nerves, stared at his phone. It seemed a premature and startling dead end. He hadn't thought about what could happen if Lockdown actually didn't _want_ to see him again—if his curiosity had truly been satisfied and he had no wish to continue with the stiff, awkward young man who was obviously so disgusted with him. Then the real man shone through.

_--but ill take it anyways. sweet talk from a guy who nerly slashed my tires w/ his eyes. change of hart?_

_--Change of mind. Perhaps another social call?_

_--if you wanna be shy sure. where at?_

He had to indulge the beast. The man was an open sore (on previously so-unblemished skin) that Prowl simply couldn't leave alone, driven by semi-obsessive complexities he couldn't understand to _pick, pick, pick_ and, when necessary, capitulate. So they were on for another… 'date'.

Prowl, of course, professionally despised the depths to which he was being forced to sink. He truly had no _want_ to go out with the man, only a need, which didn't stop him from obsessing over the indignity of it all. The indignity and the possible danger.

He was considering not even telling Optimus. Considering the mundane events of the previous night out, his warning to the Prime seemed indecorously over-somber, even if there was something about Lockdown that dumbed him down in a way. It was as though the other was only a threat when in his racing gear. Otherwise, mechanical hand and tattoos aside, he was… normal. Mind-numbingly normal, certainly not the type who would lure an officer into an alleyway and chain him to a pipe—but at the same time, when accompanied with a sly grin, exactly the type. Of course the young man's mind had desperately attempted to segregate his run-ins with the dragster in a way that made sense: threat versus non-threat, even though they were the same person. His two-sided nature was aggravating, illogical and befuddled Prowl to no end because he simply couldn't synthesize the two creatures together and come up with a cohesive 'threat' rating.

No, confusion aside, it was best that he didn't exacerbate the Prime's vision of what was surely his inferior officer dining with and espionage-ing a switchblade-sporting rogue racer without back-up. Which was… exactly what was going on, but Optimus' concern could be more detriment than help. Already the older man had stepped between him and the refrigerator on Sunday and eyed him warily, as though searching for an explanation or report of his encounter; Prowl had strode past him and retreated with his soymilk without a word, then stayed in his room for hours. He was already giving himself enough grief about it and he didn't need Optimus' interference adding to his burden of execution.

So far, all the way up until Saturday at noon, his plan was going… well, to plan. He was inconspicuous, keeping silent at work and staying out of sight and out of Optimus' presence, refining the strong yet delicate arrangement of his nerves for whatever was to transpire that night. Then, crashing into the midst of a perfectly laid plan like the teenaged bomb he was, Bumblebee… _happened_.

* * *

"_What_?"

Ratchet, lounging at the kitchen table, looked over at the scream with an arched brow and set his newspaper down on his lap. Prowl stood in the not-really living room, half-hunched over one of the couches, hand white and clawed around his cell phone as though he would crush it alongside the person on the other end; his close-kept black hair was practically fizzling up from the force of his violent dismay. After a breathy bit of static, the old medic could make out the response: it sounded far away and tinny from the small phone, but it was undeniably Bumblebee. The voice was far too nasal and chipper to be anyone else.

And he called in, of course, with yet another stupid stunt to report.

"Don't worry, I've got your helmet on! Your head's freakin' big, by the way. And the new little… samurai horns on the front are, like, way gay. What are you, Confucius?"

Ratchet grumbled in flat, tired disapproval and hoisted the Detroit Daily up again, shaking his head. Prowl clenched his eyes shut for a moment and struck the back of the couch, utterly exploding at the other's gut-rattling ignorance and _gall_.

"You believe I'm worried about _you_?!" he demanded, gesturing furiously at the air. "After you crashed your own car, you steal—_steal_--my motorcycle without so much as a word and you honestly think I'm in anguish over your health? How _dare_ you! _How dare y--_"

"Woah, Prowl! It's no big deal! I just need it to go out to Blurr's and that's murder in cab-fare. We're gonna stay up all night and play GTA, it's gonna be freakin' rad! Besides, the crash-thing was the other guys fault, I'm an awesome driv—"

A gasp. A collection of horn-honks and screeches and a far-off slam.

Pause.

"I'm okay!"

Working himself into a veritable howling rage while pacing between the meager furniture, Prowl ranted for an eternity about the disrespect and idiocy of his housemate, his ignorance and his hideous arrogance, hissing that he _needed his bike_ and this would technically be qualified as theft and _Primus damnit_ if he wouldn't finally, finally take Bumblebee in for this. After a small pause, wherein the elder drew ragged breath to continue his abuse, Bumblebee piped in like he hadn't heard a word of it and shouted something about having it back to him within the next day, then hung up.

Prowl stared at the dead phone for a moment, then chucked it onto the couch cushions and collapsed against the back of one of the other couches. Realizing that Bumblebee wasn't going to call back and say it was a joke, realizing his young housemate was just _that stupid_ and the garage was indeed empty, Prowl put his cold hands around his hot throat and nearly vomited: both for the health of his bike and what it _meant_ for his evening.

He couldn't… follow through.

He couldn't drive to the appointed meeting place on his own therefore he certainly wasn't going. He didn't even trust a taxi because of the limited availability on Saturday nights, which meant that it probably wasn't going to happen at all. The fact of it was, he didn't think he could entice the brute twice: doing it once had been enough of a strain. Unnoticed in the kitchen, Ratchet watched as Prowl stood up with an exhausted expression, groped around for his discarded phone then slouched into his room… more than aware of the fact that Prowl, no matter how much he loved his custom motorcycle, really shouldn't have been _that_ upset.

Once in his room, the misery continued. Being a slave to polite minimums even if he didn't give a rat's tail for Lockdown, Prowl couldn't fathom 'standing him up'. Like the button-down shirt, it was simply not done (especially if he could indeed muster the energy to lure the brute out again), but it was by no farce of good social manners that he ended up _speaking_ to Lockdown instead of delivering a nice, curt text. He had one all typed up, true… but he also pressed call instead of send.

By the time he realized he heard ringing, the ringing stopped. It was followed by a thick click and a voice twice as rough.

"Kid?"

He sounded surprised. So did Prowl, when he forced himself to speak. In some far-away, non-hysterical part of his mind, the officer knew he was breaking a barrier by actually speaking over the phone with the older man—some sort of barrier between explicit reality and implicit denial--and he was henceforth doomed, but he choked it out anyways.

Damn his good social breeding.

"I am… unable to attend tonight."

"Really." The single word was as delayed as it was appraising. Prowl winced, not knowing quite why. "How come?"

"My motorcycle—was stolen. Pilfered by my housemate. I cannot come."

"Shit, you and that bike," he chuckled then exhaled. Prowl could almost hear him stretching on his leather couch, possibly running a hand over his scalp. "Don't sweat it, darlin'. I'll come pick you up."

"Do not call m--no. No. Absolutely not."

"You afraid of me knowin' where you live?" Lockdown asked teasingly. "Think you're forgettin' who asked for this, ninjacop. We're still on."

He hung up, leaving Prowl staring at his silent phone for the second time in a very, very traumatic day.

The next hour (seven at night, an hour before showtime) found the young cop curled up on his bed, nursing his mess. The idea of Lockdown—_Lockdown_—pulling up in their collective driveway and calling him out provoked something just short of a passionate dry-heave. The arrangement already looked suspicious enough (older man, strange car, younger man, _damn Bumblebee_), but to be _picked up_ like some fourteen-year-old girl going to a dance? No. Prowl was independent and he wasn't going anywhere with the rogue unless he had a means of getting home--_alone_. The freedom of leaving when he chose, he knew instinctively, was one he should cling to with all of his might when concerning this man.

He fretted stupidly and uncharacteristically for an hour, then he realized, with a lovely spurt of shimmering loveliness, that he hadn't given Lockdown his address. This far overdue epiphany left him with the hope that the old dragster simply wouldn't _find_ him and he could get a new phone number and give up on this whole mess somehow and just get on with his dry, cloistered little life. It was a very, very nice idea. It comforted him.

Until eight o'clock.

Later, it became obvious that it was a simple deduction of circumstances: if the young officer went to the Laundromat, he didn't have a washer and dryer. The Factory Projects, as they were called, were notoriously under-furnished and common housing for officers and each Laundromat had a patron Project. The Burgundy Bird belonged to Prowl's section. It came down to a good amount of luck and an happenstance glance of his bike parked outside, true… but it was simple deduction that found Lockdown pulling up in front of their concrete garage at eight o'clock sharp and honking his very, very loud horn.

Repeatedly. Drawing all of his non-motorcycle-stealing housemates into the living room. Compounding Prowl's already lethally complex misery.

"What a racket—"

"Who in the world?"

Prowl, practically half-dressed, fidgeted behind them all, occasionally reaching up to dig his fingers through his loose hair or pinch at his nose, desperately fighting the urge to run; which way, room-bound or car-bound, he didn't know. Then Prowl's cellphone rang; he jumped as though it had bitten him and made an excruciatingly dumb noise trying to turn it off, thrashing at his pocket and the betraying device, already _tying him_ in horribly heavy, incriminating chains to the rascal outside.

"Prowl, are you okay? Calm down, buddy."

The only time he could fault Bulkhead was for his often inopportunely observant nature. Stung and caught, Prowl looked helplessly into that wide, concerned face while their two elders became aware of his minute tremors, his wide eyes. The practiced ninja forced his surge of neurotic impulses down under his tongue and bit down, averting his eyes and trying to breathe steadily.

Flowing river. Flowing river.

"Prowl? Do you know who this is?" Optimus asked, quirking a handsomely thick brow and gesturing at the honk-honk-_honking_ muscle-car in the drive.

Though they didn't know, they were trying to force him to claim Lockdown in some way. He could either throw up his hands and throw it all away (alongside his reputation) or make the admission and try and salvage what was already hopelessly destroyed. Finally, after minutes of being stared at, he swallowed and pinched the bridge of his nose again. It was the only way this could… move forward.

Also, he was an idiot.

"It is my… transportation," he whispered.

"Your ride?"

"My ride."

Optimus looked out the window then frowned, a most horrible expression dawning on his face as he turned around.

"Wait a minute. Prowl, is that—"

And it came out.

_

* * *

_

Looked like he'd waltzed his way into a family argument: daddy didn't want to let princess out of the house. Oh well. At least he had the right place.

Lockdown could tell it was an argument by the clipped movements and the kid's straight-backed severity, usually cool but now acidic. Neither man gave the other an inch, their slow down-driveway progress watched by a fat kid and a codger; Lockdown had pulled out onto the side of the street to give the fight more room. The old dragster smirked, angling the review mirror so he could get a better view of the high-minded tussle. He could just _see_ the Prime bearing down on the kid and Prowl stiffened every second as he adjusted his plain forest-green turtleneck, turning brittle and snappish and furious… and a thousand times more likely to run into his waiting car.

He could nearly hear it.

"_I'm not… _implying_ anything, Prowl! I would be just as suspicious if you were seeing a woman—"_

"_I am not _seeing_ him. This is business-oriented."_

"_Besides the fact that you shouldn't even be tailing someone under suspicion? _Pointtaken_, Prowl, but he's more than twice your age and you said yourself he's flaunting illegal activities. His… intentions are blurry. It's unwise to go alone with him! At least take… "_

_He couldn't think of any names. Prowl hadn't brought a single friend home since their move-in over three years ago. He pressed his hand to his forehead, grimacing._

"_I don't know, just… just find someone to go with."_

"_Leave me to this."_

"_No. I wouldn't say anything if it hadn't been affecting your quality of work! You've changed since you started this… project and you don't seem to realize how serious it is! You've become more unpredictable—"_

"May I remind you that I am off-hours? May I remind you that I am a trained professional fully capable of protecting myself, especially on social calls? What I do in my time off is none of your business, Optimus. As well-trained as you are, academy graduate, I do not believe you are equipped to handle my personal life."

Even if Lockdown wasn't in his personal life, the urge to get the Prime away nearly suffocated the young man. He thrashed. Whirl, glare. Cutting gesture.

"_Pedestrian activities are not your department. Kindly keep your opinions to yourself."_

And the kid was off, stomping all the way. He approached the car at ramming speed; Lockdown winced as he got in and slammed the door with all of his ninja might then crossed his arms, all in an incorrigible huff.

"Drive."

Lockdown, eyebrows high, saluted and drove out.

He waited until they were on the highway with some good acid-metal thumping away inside the car's body before he broke the ice. He dialed it down and leaned back in his leather seat, smirking over at the flushed young thing with the strange stern sunglasses.

"Now, I know it's too early to put anything to terms yet… but you wouldn't be usin' big bad 'ol me to rebel against your boss, would'ja?" he rumbled pleasantly, as though he was more than fond of the idea.

"Perhaps," Prowl answered after a moment. His tight voice and posture were a combination of exhaustion and iciness; thus rattled, he returned to staring out the window, long pretty face scrunching up as though reminded of something. A mission. A purpose to this whole circus, now distorted and nearly out of sight when drowned by his own colossal discomfort.

Lockdown, blessedly ignorant of his conundrum, slapped at his thick jean-clad thigh with a horribly satisfied grin: because rebellions were just his cup of tea...or whiskey.

"Then it's settled. We gotta do somethin' bat-shit."

Prowl tilted his head and slowly turned to look at him, baffled expression devoid of true nerves or fear even as Lockdown took a sudden left turn and screeched onto the dark highway, instantly roaring up and past a car he should have let in.

"I was just gonna let you drag me out to pizza and then crawl back to your pen, but now we got somethin' to live up to. You put on a show but now you gotta make the rebellion worthwhile, kid. Make a statement, show him you mean business."

Prowl's vacant stare—the longest bit of eye-contact or attention he'd ever wrung out of the kid, probably because he was so disturbed—didn't flicker. Possibly he had never entertained any thought of rebellion; Lockdown couldn't imagine a creature so complacent. Then again… he grinned.

"How 'bout you tromp in there, four am, reekin' of cigarettes and whiskey?"

Prowl's brow creased, eyes drifting down to his lap. Far from planning the apparently rebellious future with a man he didn't trust in the slightest, he couldn't quite bring himself to think over what had just happened; couldn't think about the explosion that had propelled him to this scraped, burnt spiral. But he did know one thing. He was here for a dearly-bought reason and if he went along with what Lockdown wanted, the rogue would be more pliant. Possibly consume alcohol. Possibly let something slip.

That, and he couldn't go back. Not right now. Prowl didn't want to be here, but more than anything he didn't want to be there. After a long, long while, the young officer nodded once, staring hard into his lap.

"Whatever it takes… to get the job done," he murmured, more darkly than he should have. Lockdown's grin widened; he slid into an adjacent lane with a swirl of his faux-chain steering wheel.

"Couldn't have said it better myself."

Surprisingly enough, it sounded like a plan and he felt a certain measure of comfort being taken somewhere where escape was certain. When they pulled up into a dark parking lot half an hour later, however, Prowl's hazy opinion took a drastic turn for the worse the second he realized what he thought was a bar sign was, in fact, a heavily stylized nude woman draping her purple curves around a heart-topped pole.

"No. No," Prowl whispered, then shouted as they crunched to a slow, goading halt: "_Absolutely not_."

"Don't get your ponytail in a knot, ninjacop: s'just a social call. I know a gal who works there," Lockdown assured him with a grimy grin, jerking his prize muscle-car into park beneath a broken streetlamp.

Something told Prowl it wouldn't be the manager.

* * *

Lockdown lied. Constantly.

It was his favorite hobby next to simply _talking_ and leching and then breaking the rules in a smiling punch, and then perhaps making Prowl the most uncomfortable he'd ever felt in his _entire existence_—but oh, then they were out of order. Technically, all of the above could be fit into the last category and Lockdown was hard at work at said hobby, half-dragging skinny, struggling Prowl into the inner ring of the red- and pink-lit 'gentleman's establishment' and forcing him down into a chair. Practically paralyzed by the utter wailing _wrongness_ of it all, stranded with a grinning madman in the guttered edges of dark downtown Detroit, Prowl sat with a mouth so wide it could have caught a school of fish: something his roguish companion pointed out to him with a too-close chuckle and a pinch at his chin. Lockdown was as comfortable here as he would have been on a couch at home, which only exacerbated Prowl's anguish at being _seen in a strip club_.

Why was he here? Why? Oh Primus, where had he gone wrong?

All the while, Lockdown attempted to make spotty conversation with him… or rather, verbally jabbed at him when it seemed the conservative little cop was retreating too far within his 'happy place'. He had to keep the kid fresh and in the open; he grinned as he did it, asking him about his home life and who the codger was, et cetera. Prowl, staring with uncertain disgust at all the other unlit men frequenting the Lonely Hearts Club, was thrilling with something close to terror when the heavy magenta curtains parted and a song and dance ensued. It was more high-scale than most local clubs, admittedly, but anything baring the tender double-smile of soft female buttocks probably would have made Prowl clench his eyes shut and inwardly curl up.

It was upbeat and not nearly as provocative as it could have been. The costumes were pleasing and the lights accented it all quite well. Though the sexually closeted little officer would not have had the terms at hand to describe the difference, the establishment had more of a Burlesque-show feel to it than an outright strip-club, placing more emphasis on performance than jiggling naked bits. Regardless, at least it took his mind off of his stupid move back home. Prowl hated himself for agreeing with the rogue, in some small part, for thinking that a plan this stupid could actually work… then again, looping Buddhist chants through the dark of his head helped anything short of mortal terror and looping he was.

Though engaging, the display was nothing more than a titillating introduction for a normal strip show. When it ended, all of the girls, long-legged and candy-colored under the rainbow lights, twirled and strutted and traded flourishing caresses for a moment before scattering; a steady beat took up in the background. Then, with a focus only borne of previous agreement, the lead dancer in the exhibition strode over to them.

Few things could make it through Prowl's head at that point: he was currently mired in the horror of having to watch his questionable 'companion' receive a lap dance as his version of 'a bat-shit evening'. So, on that fearful thought-train, Prowl instantly assumed the approaching stripper to be a favorite of Lockdown's who was simply honoring a frequent customer—and his gut flipped at the idea of anyone coming to a club frequently enough to _have favorites_—until she performed a fetching twist-plus-splits-plus-hair-flip combo and leaned forward, plopping two hands straight on Lockdown's huge shoulders.

"Hello, darling."

"Hey to yourself," he answered, smirking as he gave her a considerably canned up-and-down; she swirled herself back on the stage and gave them a view of her bare back, waterfall of olive skin accented only by the lacy snaps of her vividly magenta bra. "Y'look great."

Gazing over her shoulder, the stripper gave a long-suffering sigh that certainly didn't mesh with the liquid lace fervor of her dance.

"For once, I'd like you to tell that to my face instead of my ass."

"Aw, y'know I'm an equal opportunity complimenter—either end works for me."

"Such a charmer," she nearly groaned, using the uneven cut of her dark, chin-length hair to mask her exasperated expression from the rest of the club. She softened slightly when Lockdown motioned her over and slipped her a ten dollar bill into her hand, not her panties. As was her nature, she looked conflicted for a split second then thumbed it into her panty-line with a warm, pretty smile. "Thank you, precious."

"Haven't seen you in a while. That's your leave pay."

She smiled again--then she actually let her scope expand outside her tattooed _friend_ and noticed the body language of the young man next to him. After a second of inspection, it appeared that the young-looking biker with the strange sunglasses was somehow included in the muscled dragster's loop; turning back to Lockdown, their eyes met in a quick 'he with you?'-'he's with me' exchange. She faced Prowl with a shining interest as she pulled another dance move, open, natural expression once more not mixing with her lace-rimmed nudity.

"Hello, there!"

Prowl mustered a greeting-ish gag for her, still rattled down to his white virgin bones at having a near-naked woman so near him, heavy with color-stained curves.

"Your face is white," she commented with a ghost of a chuckle. Usually all the new young men she danced for blushed like the dickens—this one was the exact opposite. She glanced at Lockdown almost conversationally. "Where has all his blood gone?

"I can guess," he chortled. For the millionth time in a comparatively short span (when had Lockdown first 'rescued' him? A month and a half ago?), Prowl felt undue amounts of eyeballs directed towards his groin and made a short, suffering noise, growing more flustered by the minute. She just lidded her almond eyes like a cat and rolled onto her back on the glossy pink stage.

"Cute turtle-neck."

Prowl only stared at her, adding 'unnerved' to his list of current raging emotions. Lockdown nudged him in the side.

"Compliment her," he rumbled. "She likes that."

Prowl, practically withering into the back of his heart-shaped seat in an effort to get away from _so much woman_, turned and stared at Lockdown with an open mouth. Torque, as he would learn her name, subliminally worked on a series of playful exchanges—compliment for compliment, some backhanded, others clever. Still dancing in whatever small way she could manage while still maintaining appraising eyes, she waited with a full, amused mouth for his reciprocation.

Prowl's mind convulsed, grasping wildly for anything nice and noncommittal he could say that didn't involve her breasts, now almost certainly a foot from his face. Struggling to… make conversation with a stripper.

"Your… uh… song and dance—"

"_Song_ and dance? Oh, another one bamboozled by the wonders of lip-synch," she swooned farcically with another twist of her body, rolling her eyes. "Not quite. I can't sing worth a damn but at least they updated the choreography to something _not_ Cirque du Soleil. We're strippers, not gymnasts. Remember how I almost broke Hyacinthe's leg on that last routine?"

This last one was directed towards Lockdown, who nodded and snickered slightly. Torque didn't like Hyacinthe very much ('dirty cat-bitch' were her choice words after a few drinks), so that left him somewhat biased toward her nearly-broken leg. Prowl once more tried to disappear into his chair, feeling horribly disoriented. Even if his compliment was weak, however, the stripper switched tracks and plowed on, dissecting the young officer with her sharp brown eyes.

"Now--how did you fall in with this dog? You're so straight-laced I can see your mental corset."

"An unfortunate accident," Prowl said after a moment, not honoring his 'companion' with so much as a glance. His hands took refuge in the dark of his pockets, where he found a straw wrapper and a brittle restaurant mint that could keep his fingers—and hopefully his mind--busy for hours of strip-club torture.

"I'm sure _he_ doesn't think of it that way." She winked at him when he looked up, giving him a fond, if cautionary, look. She nodded towards Lockdown, teasing, "You'd better run, darling: this one's trouble and he _likes_ you."

Prowl didn't know what to say to that.

No one, he thought, would, even if their bruised heart wasn't convulsing and bursting to get out via their wet tight throat as Lockdown shot her a playfully reproving look-- something to the effect of 'I'm tryin' to be subtle, gal, don't blow my cover'--as he _looped his arm around Prowl's chair_. Perhaps it was a signal for her to depart, for Torque gave them one more smile and reverse-slithered back onto the main stage with a roll of her hips and set back to work, motioning with a finger before striding, liquid and long-legged, over to a _real_ customer.

Ignorant to Prowl's accusatory yet lost, perturbed stare, Lockdown settled down and propped up his long legs, not bothering to remove his horribly warm arm from the young man's back.

"Her shift's almost over. Give her a sec."

Lockdown's definition of 'almost' was surely nothing but a ploy to keep him in his seat.

A traumatic, boobie-filled hour later, the pet stripper resurfaced from the back of the club and sat down next to them, dressed in, of all things, a turtleneck and jeans. She winked at Prowl again before she sat down, crossing legs that, for some odd reason, looked even better when wrapped in a trim, dark blue. Unbidden, she began talking to Prowl, introducing herself as Lockdown had failed to do. Her name was Torque: thirty-four and unmarried, she liked kittens, a good book, the occasional beer and yes, she did this for a living. She assaulted him with words, fire-starting a warm conversation out of nowhere: the most the young cop could manage were affirmative huffs and mm's and a rare bit of eye-contact, although an alarmed sound did escape him when Lockdown went off to order a drink from the gaudy bar at the back.

Alone with him, she pointed out her friends, waving and air-kissing at them as they 'strutted their stuff'.

There was Shortstop—yes, the mischievous-looking redhead with the baseball themed two-piecer--then Buttercup… Every so often, she turned back to Lockdown to detail some drama that had taken place over the past three weeks. The racer grunted at all the right times, even chuckling some, one arm now looped (thank Primus) around her chair. Now that there was someone between him and the dragster, some sort of curvy buffer that slowed his heart, it gave the young officer time to _think_ as they talked.

Their interactions were… casual, intimate, normal. Prowl was beyond confused at their relationship, even moreso when Torque uncrossed her legs in a lull (prompted by Lockdown and his decision to chug the rest of his beer) and took some money out of her pocket. She raised it into the air. It was, of all ironies, the same money she earned on stage, all ones, and she used it to beckon a somewhat-neglected dancer over to her side of the stage.

Buttercup, a very, very nice-looking blonde with a black bikini and plastic bumblebee hairclips, slinked agreeably off the stage and into Torque's lap, right into the woman's suddenly playfully-predatory sphere. Prowl's eyebrows were already high, but they shot to atmospheric levels when the paying woman cupped the other's soft white back and slipped, luxuriously and languorously, her entire money-padded hand inside the lace-lined cup of Buttercup's bra and _gripped_ and leaned up for a kiss, two lustrous slices of red lips mixing with an intimate sound. Prowl might have gasped; probably did.

He accidentally caught Lockdown's eye over the scene (not a hard thing to do, when his own eyes were wide enough to enable a panoramic view): the scoundrel was watching without an ounce of pretense, much like every other man in the club, but looked beyond the all-female tangle to grin at him for a split moment. Prowl, spooked, turned away and the kiss ended. The two had barely parted before the PA system popped to life with a squeal of feedback.

"_Torque_."

"I'm a paying customer, damnit!" she shouted belligerently, raising a fist and shaking it; Buttercup laughed, nose mooshed quite adorably against the older woman's cheek. Torque planted a kiss on her shoulder, looking up at the other woman through her mascara-thick lashes before she retreated back to the stage. "And a friend, of course."

Prowl didn't know where this woman had acquired her definition of 'friend', but surely nowhere on the fringes of Detroit—or Earth.

"They like it, I like it—where's the problem?"

She spoke the truth. The men on the other side of the ring, fantasies already running wild, were eyeing the lucky dancer with a new level of mixed-lipstick interest, waving green dollars in the air.

"The only people who don't like it are the management, but they don't matter much. Luke says that it gives the customers 'ideas' on what is acceptable here, but they know these girls and they know me. They either respect my coworkers or they'd better start."

With such protectiveness and spunk in turns, Prowl could see why she was a bit of a favorite. Already, he was strangely… alright with her, although he much preferred the turtleneck to the garters, that he had to admit, and he was more than grateful to _get out of there_ when she finally rose to her feet and motioned towards the door.

All three of them went to a twenty-four hour diner afterwards, slipping into the muscle-car in the dead-quiet cold parking lot and taking off until a flickering sign lured them in like bugs. Torque did most of the talking.

No longer distracted by perfunctory dances while conversing, she was a bright woman with bright clothing and a contagious ease and utterly no boundaries. She was so animated that Prowl was actually interested in talking to her… perhaps because he was still horribly frantic on the inside and clawing for anything stable that wasn't a strip-club and wasn't his still-technically-captor Lockdown, but still. After a bit of vague probing, it turned out she practiced a martial art similar to his own and was vegetarian Buddhist: that simple similarity gave them considerable ammo for 1AM and actually coaxed Prowl into crafting not only a full sentence but an opinionated explanation. They spoke of the health benefits and experiences and anything but their jobs, all while Lockdown lounged at her side in the obnoxiously-yellow booth and stole her meal in unforgivable half-pancake installments. Mostly, he simply watched them talk, lazy smirk engraved on his beastly white face.

Prowl, for the first time that day, actually found himself smiling slightly as the woman bullied him into telling her a particularly humorous story from his time in training. He was no storyteller and Bumblebee mocked his attempts to no end ("like hearing someone read the dictionary" was a favorite) but Torque's attention seemed to dispel any discomfort and her laugh was worth it. He chuckled into his fist as the backlash of her reaction hit him and the woman stopped and gave him a _look_ so full of uncomprehending amusement that he had to chuckle further, washing his half-shy smile down with a sip of hot cocoa. Torque was just likable and Lockdown, suddenly, was… bearable.

It was all a matter of technique. The brute was clever, introducing him to a neutral party and a very intelligent one at that. She was the one who could say what he couldn't summarize about himself; a sideways indicator of his normalcy or his capacity for tenderness. It was akin to seeing a lion walk alongside a lamb: even after witnessing it rip prey apart—or cuff it to a pipe in an alleyway—it rearranged one's view a bit. It certainly made dehumanization rather impossible, especially after seeing his laundry-stalker grumble and blot at his nose after his snickering lady-friend smeared a bit of whip cream on it. Caught off-guard, Prowl almost chuckled too, then Lockdown looked directly at him and he blanched and looked aside, heavy frown returning almost instantly.

They dropped her back off at the parking lot to the Lonely Hearts Club at three am. Lockdown got out and shut Prowl in the car. Torque waited a few very, very cold, jacket-burrowing seconds before shrugging and opening her arms, giving her life-long friend a rather hard look only intensified by the bare yellow light of the parking lights.

"Very smooth, darling," she finally said, shaking her head. "It was great to see you. It's been too long. Only next time, when we go out? Try not to use me to seduce your little boyfriends."

"Just lettin' him meet the family," Lockdown lied with a disarming smile, leaning heavily on his prize car—and the prize inside.

"Just letting _you_ know," she snipped, poking his hard chest, "that I know what that was."

Lockdown shrugged, offering nothing else: especially no excuses. She sighed.

"God, you need a guide to dating. Get him home. Just… don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Tall order."

"Considering I'm one of the most law-abiding citizens I know _and_ I keep it in my age-bracket, I'd say so. Safe drive, honey," she called over her shoulder, walking away.

"Good show tonight, gal."

"Up yours."

"That's the plan."

"Ewww. Gay men are so… ugh. _Ugh_. I'm leaving. Bye."

"Bye."

* * *

They pulled into the Project garage at three-thirty in the morning.

Feeling as though he were trapped in a dark metal womb as the car hissed over the eternally-wet asphalt, Prowl had taken the entire drive trying to synthesize his rebellious experience: who he had met, where he had gone. It was rather like being plunged into different flavors and textures and densities, all suffocating in their intensity, then being ripped out as soon as he thought he knew how to deal with it. Throughout it all, tension. Now, he was just too tired to be tense.

Lockdown got out of the car when he did. The sound of their closing doors punched the empty dark morning glass and Prowl simply stood and watched as Lockdown meandered over to the passenger of the car. Perhaps it was lamentable he didn't have the energy to duck out and run in, but Lockdown stopped a respectable three feet in front of him and gave him a cocky grin of approval.

He was dressed in a black button-down shirt and jeans. Almost presentable.

"Good show, kid. You held up."

He leaned on the top of his car, navigating his white arms in between the spikes and breathing in like a drunk man awakening, then remembered something. He dug in his black jacket.

"D'say it's time for you to make your entrance, but we forgot the whiskey."

Apparently Lockdown was prepared to take his offer—the betraying perfume of cigarettes and whiskey—very seriously. The strip club had given him the cigarette stench, but the other? Prowl looked at him warily, hardly knowing what he was still doing out in the driveway instead of in his bed. The night was surreal, just cold enough to pierce his cable-knit turtleneck but it was quiet. So, so quiet. He felt unsure, but not threatened. Words were… difficult.

"I do not…"

"No, figured you didn't. Tea kid."

Something underneath Prowl's skin vibrated at the way he said the nickname—indulgent, teasing, all while looking at him steadily, red eyes alight with interest. Lockdown gestured with the tiny flask.

"Lemme pour a little on you. It'll add to the effect."

"There will be no 'effect'. No one will see—or smell--me come in," he muttered uncomfortably, turning to begin his exit. Lockdown caught him by the sleeve, far more gently than he had to. Prowl turned dumbly, glaring at the hold on his brand-name turtleneck.

"Leave your clothes on the floor. This stuff's so aged the smell will fill the house in under an hour. They'll wake up drunk and know it was you."

The young officer knew by now that Lockdown, once set on a course, was impossible to dissuade. He didn't have the energy to throw the other off. It was a superfluous, somewhat ridiculous capitulation but one that would get him inside faster: the proximity of his bed taunted him even more than the promise of familiar surroundings and a safety sphere. Finally, after a dawdling minute of standing in the crisp cold with Lockdown gripping and staring at him, Prowl just gave up. He muttered his acquiescence and returned to the side of the car, placing one arm on the hood to wait.

Grinning his gap-toothed approval once more, Lockdown took the cap and gingerly tipped the flask: a considerable amount dribbled into it and Prowl prepared, quite tiredly, to be baptized by debauchery and distilled grain and finally get to bed. To accept his failure with this vagabond and wake up a new person, unrattled by undignified night escapades… Lockdown, with many a tattoo-blurred squint, planned a trajectory and placed the flask on the top of the car.

Unfortunately, things got jostled.

Maybe the older man was drunk: he had driven rather cleanly but had been taking sips from the flask all night and was probably nursing a considerably heavy buzz. Regardless, his aim was off. The generous capful of whiskey ended up popping up and splashing on Prowl's chin and neck instead of the front of his sweater. Prowl flinched at the little slap of cold liquid, hand immediately darting to his face to smear at the noxious smell.

Stung, he sputtered to clear the stuff from his lips and heard Lockdown say something; maybe some poor excuse for an apology. Then the racer shifted and Prowl stiffened at a strong, steady pressure at the back of his neck, holding him still. His nerves flared then tingled madly as the warm fingers tightened on his cold neck—his back hit the side of the car--and one hand whipped out to fasten on Lockdown's forearm, eyes wide. The offender moved in front of him, bracing his other hand on the side of the car, dangerously close to Prowl's cocked hip.

The man didn't say anything. There were no excuses. Lockdown just looked him straight in the eye, smirked and leaned forward in one slow, tight-jean creak and pressed his mouth to the drops, licking along Prowl's bottom lip in one velvet push.

Perhaps Prowl gasped: he couldn't hear it for all the blood in his ears and his wet lips.

A shivering, stunned moment claimed his logical, conservative world when Lockdown pulled back, just far enough to advance again and just far enough to challenge the young man's paralyzed stare with lazy anticipation and the taste of whiskey and skin salt. The other's low hand brushed the side of his hip, fingers splaying slowly over the sliver of warm skin above his slacks. Early morning reality froze and Prowl's young heart disintegrated in a messy ribcage spray of red and the chunky offal clogged every ripe vein in his chest with hot pressure. He trembled. Exhaled.

Then Lockdown came down again and his meaty thigh pressed between his legs, provoking a pulsing sun-storm of sensation and Prowl jerked. Cold fear returned to his tingling blood in one painful jolt. He made an anguished noise, shoved the older man away and stumbled away from the car, running for the front door and slamming it shut.

After ripping off his clothes, leaving a lumpy trail of whiskey and cigarette smoke on the cold factory floor, Prowl arched underneath the burning spray of certainty and scrubbed the night from his skin until it reddened, breathing short and scared in the dark and _waiting for his body to see sense._


	9. In

A/N: Awww, Bulkhead. You're such a good plot device for feeling-sharing. Moreover, Lockdown? Why you gotta be so INSIGHTFUL and keep me from my porn? Can't you just be a dumb gay hormone-addled forty-year-old asshole? NO? Well damn :(

Also, announcement: **this fic is getting changed to M-rating because of the upcoming dubious content. It will disappear from the default main page, in sum, and skitter to the darkest pages known to fangirl**. Please, either put me on your watch list or remember to check in the M listing :3 Sorry for the disappearing act last week, I'm back in business! XD Woohoo, sweet week ahead!

Uh, ignore all that 'Primus' stuff before. I've just now decided that Prowl's (VERY estranged) family is hardcore Catholic. Yes. Very sudden decision. I love planned fiction. Too bad I never get to do it. Mrgh.

Also, how interested are we in seeing Prowl's (teenage wangst-filled) high-school existence, girls and guys? Hmm? Just a question. Hee. Enjoy!

* * *

In

* * *

"Prowl?"

"Yes, Bulkhead?"

Prowl turned around in his computer chair, rather stymied to see the mild young man shifting from foot to foot in his doorway. Bulkhead bit his lip and tried to smile at the same time, scratching his head. He started several very deliberate sentences before scrapping them all with a frustrated noise, then sighed.

"Are you okay?" he asked, wide face pinched in worry.

Prowl blinked. His housemate was large and bumbling, a simple soul caught between engineering, art and his job at the station, but he had a solid, honest disposition that often floored Prowl with its simple wisdom. Whenever he spoke up—rather, made a point to speak up—his gentle warnings were always worth listening to. The only problem was (as he was a bit slow and far too trusting) that whenever he spoke up, it was either dearly needed or far too late.

"Well enough. Rather… disoriented, if anything," Prowl answered haltingly, one fine eyebrow high. After a moment of mutual staring, he cleared his throat and motioned his housemate into his cream-and-sepia minimalist room; his rock-hard bed gave a spring-snapping death-creak as Bulkhead sat down on it.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Not particularly. It will pass in due time," Prowl reasoned, hoping only that he was actually right.

In truth, he did not know what state he was in at the moment… nor where he stood with the majority of his housemates due to his immature behavior of late. Much akin to Bumblebee's theft of his motorcycle, storming off had not earned him any measure of confidence from Optimus or Ratchet and he was a soul that suffered as much from a loss of confidence as a physical blow. Not only that, the 'smelling of whiskey' debacle was supposed to be a expertly-executed rebellion but he had nearly forgotten about it by the following morning: dealing with his smelly clothing and the memories therein had been a bear, his social revolt flagging down into grim discomfort and weakness.

He'd had more sharp words with Optimus the next day: words which most of his housemates had heard before the Prime chased them out with a single furious hand-gesture. Bulkhead, obviously, was getting worried at the escalating schism even though he didn't know what it was about, and Prowl couldn't say it wasn't weighing on him as well. Things between Optimus and himself, never particularly merry before, were… tense.

When confronted Sunday afternoon, the younger officer had essentially snarled that he wasn't aware the Project had a curfew, after which Optimus harangued him about setting up false expectations and purposefully putting himself in danger. That, admittedly, was his fault: he turned his cell-phone off the moment he left and found at least ten calls from his superior and housemate on his call log the next morning. He hadn't told them when he was going to be back or anything of the sort, leaving them (or at least Optimus, the only one _informed_ of his severely unprofessional risks) to worry over his safety. The earnest, if incensed, Prime had much to say on the subject of his solitary streak, detailing how all of them, even unemployed and thieving Bumblebee, had to _work together_—and it was nonsense.

It was teamwork-oriented nonsense, no less, Prowl had no illusions that he _should_ abide by. He should. He just… wasn't.

Nearly incapacitated by the strange events in his life, Prowl wasn't quite sure where he was at the moment—in his own life, in the scheme of things. In his house, in the office. Disoriented was the perfect word: right now, he was settling for anywhere he could place his feet and not be swept away.

"You sure?" Bulkhead prodded him again, deep voice almost hurt. Prowl turned slightly and tapped his fingers on his keyboard, giving a quick, lukewarm quirk of his mouth.

"Quite."

"Well… do what you want, buddy," Bulkhead sighed after a long moment, thick hands patting down on thicker thighs before he heaved himself to his feet and started out. The bed sighed painfully. "Just… keep yourself safe while doing it, okay? Having fun is one thing, but I don't wanna see you… y'know, hurt."

"Thank you, uh… Bulkhead," Prowl stuttered, staring after the engineer-in-training with a slightly lost expression until he was alone once more—then, shaking his head, he started back on his work report. He typed the next few lines, read them over and deleted them all in the space of a minute. He tried again, managing only the first few words of a sentence that, even so prematurely, didn't make sense. His mind went blank.

It had been a… problem that day. He could deal with a blank mind: it was his goal when meditating. Having every thought vacate his brain like a jellyfish sapped of hydrostatic pressure, however, left it vulnerable to unpleasant memories. He couldn't think about the previous night yet (or ever), but his mind was doing a fantastic job of shoving it into his face while it still reeked of cigarette smoke. Finally, after an entire sleep-deprived day of pushing through his own confusion and wincing at sudden recollections—realizing he had been staring at a blank screen for ten minutes and was mired in his own head with an enemy that _he had provoked from his perfect truce_—Prowl sat back and sighed, staring dully at the ceiling.

What was there to think about?

Several things: his lethal confusion actually had begun far before they pulled into the driveway and the 4-am _incident_ happened. Even getting him into the strip-club had been more of a fight than Prowl let on. He kept refusing it (as if saying 'no' enough would negate the club and the situation and his idiotic _decision_, how could he _do_ this--) and Lockdown threw his head back and erupted in a laugh so evil and bursting with wild leather enjoyment that Prowl just raised his voice and nearly yelled it: _no_.

And it was only the beginning.

* * *

It couldn't be happening. It was a freeze-frame from a bad movie—except the sordid events were still progressing in muted seat-belt clicks and tight jean creaks, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing.

Prowl could almost hear the neon in the strip-club lights whining and spitting, mirroring the disbelieving ruckus in his own abused veins.

When Lockdown got out of the car, Prowl stayed glued to his seat. He didn't even move to touch the seatbelt. After a minute of standing out in the freezing, glistening-black parking lot, Lockdown sauntered over to the passenger side, popped the door open and made a comment about being too chivalrous for his own good. Prowl, nearly dying of the heat beneath his skin and his own stupidity, did no more than cross his arms and stare out the red-tinted windshield in front of him, curly purple neon lines blurring in his vision.

"I will stay in the car," he grit out venomously, lip curling, "Until you are finished."

"Oh, no y'don't," Lockdown chuckled, making Prowl nearly hiss in shock as he leaned down and plunged his burly hands into the car and actually _set upon_ his seatbelt, which so-conveniently happened to be tight across his pelvis. It was a small, slippery target, so there was slippage. A lot of slippage with rough, sly fingers.

"You wanted a crazy night, I'm gonna deliver."

Somehow, between the explicit groping and the hot, cigar-thick breath in his ear and the fact of being manhandled out of a car like a toddler, Lockdown managed to get the young officer to snap like the skinny rubber band he was. In a condensed bit of thrashing, Prowl threw him off and pushed out onto the asphalt, fists clenched at his side, narrow face dangerously flushed.

"Stop!" he burst out, voice ringing in the early blackness of downtown. He hitched his jacket up and zipped it with shaking hands, jaw locked. "Stop touching me, stop _this_! This… encounter is borderline enough as it is and you make me extremely uncomfortable with your comments and… o-overtures!"

The dense, cold air of the parking lot seemed to ring, clogging Prowl's ears. It seemed too elementary and pathetic to fend off as calculating a predator as Lockdown had proven to be: even shaking with the once-again fresh realization of his _situation_ and the cathartic value of screaming something a month and a half in brewing, Prowl felt painfully stupid saying it aloud, even if it was the only option he had left. The rogue had undoubtedly counted on the excruciating discomfort to keep Prowl quiet and thus in some level of non-explicit pliancy. But now, his pattern was… disrupted.

He had no idea what was to come. As with everything outside the realms of direct harassment, however, the old racer surprised him in a horrible way. Lockdown took his outburst in stride, making a deep, neutral sound and glancing around the sparsely-populated parking lot for a contemplative moment before looking at Prowl full force, face uncommonly serious.

"Alright. So what's better: bein' uncomfortable or bein' bored?"

Prowl's face twisted up, disbelief punching through his mirroring insides.

"What?" he demanded, stuffing his raw hands in his jacket pockets and stepping away as much from the man as his cryptic, random question.

"You're bored," Lockdown grunted. "Every wakin' minute."

Lockdown nodded mechanically when the young officer simply stared at him, uncomprehending of this man or his words or the _right he had to say them_. He leaned against his precious car.

"Anyone with eyes can see it. You're bored with people, you're bored with what y'do, partially 'cos you don't try; partially 'cos you think you're too good to try." Lockdown reached into his jacket for a brief twist and tip of his flask, each movement aligning with the bulldozer rhythm. He gulped and tucked it back. "No one stands up t'you. Your little 'officer of the law' power-trip has lost its sparkle and you don't _like_ people givin' in to you anymore. Not without a fight, 'cos you wanna be the one to slam 'em down. Normal, self-satisfied cop wouldn't a chased me into that alley on foot. Dumb move. No, you wanna dig your claws into someone but you don't wanna risk fallin' on your face and y'like canned victory too much to shake it up. So now, with me—with what I do, breakin' your grip on things--you're _uncomfortable_."

Prowl couldn't feel his fingers; couldn't feel his mind. Lockdown snorted, shaking his head.

"Sad fuckin' day, Prowl."

It was as though he had planned this perfect exposure, just like he planned everything else—or maybe, just maybe, he had _planned_ nothing at all.

Maybe, straight from the beginning, it just came to Lockdown out of chaos, only molded into a plan by his quick, clever paws: one hot, one cold. No matter the man's execution, Prowl stood under the streetlamp with the rogue and felt his world drop away with his gut as he was flayed open underneath that buzzing surgical light. There was no place to hide: no books to slip into and no cultured witticisms to brandish, isolated like a gun-range target in ugly yellows against pitiless, yawning black. His landmarks were gone and every accusation was a bullet, hitting true and ripping into a body and a mind that had been trapped between two stark extremes since puberty.

Prowl was a creature of categories, of order. He reveled in flawless execution and due process, but sadly, he was overqualified to handle anything within his comfort zone and was therefore bored with it. Destructively, achingly bored. Anything outside of it, (especially unpleasant, sharp-edged possibilities that banged around inside of him at night, hitting all of his tender joints and trying to worm their way out through his barricaded ribs) he avoided with an unseen cringe and a sharp intake of breath, terrified equally of the unknown and that paralyzed _lost_ feeling. The only thing that carried him beyond that threshold was the occasional caustic surge of pride, but he was so _young_. Stringent control was his lifeblood, not only his sweetest liquor but his basest bread: he couldn't survive without it.

Until now, he had never realized how much.

Lockdown could see the growing realization on the young officer's shadow-stained face, giving him a long, gutter-dripping moment to simply _think_ and grind out fevered, useless excuses inside the corseted insides of his skull before catching his wide-eyed attention with a flick of his mechanical hand.

"Uncomfortable you can get over. Bored leads nowhere," he said, leveling a thick digit at him. "You wanna step up and live a little, even if y'don't like the results? Or are you gonna stay in the car like a five-year-old 'till I come back and drive ya back to daddy? Or even better, call him an' tell him how sorry you are so he can come pick you up. Your choice, ninjacop."

Disoriented as he was, Prowl couldn't deal with the assault on his person, but given a _choice_ and a challenge? Desperately seeking distraction after such a flaying, the heat returned to his skin and Prowl had the dense, sinking feeling that living up to this man's challenges—barbs that became imbedded in the most inflamed crevices of his pride and values—would lead to something very large…and possibly bad. Either way, there were only two places to run. Forward and backward. Club or car. His leather jacket squeaked and his breath fogged the air. Lockdown waited.

"I'm using you," Prowl said suddenly, eyes locked on the man in front of him—who only shook his head and smirked.

"I know."

Prowl made a stricken noise as Lockdown moved to his side and his thick hand fastened on the nape of the officer's bare neck. The contact sent a gush of tingles down his hollow spine, warm lips nearly brushing his ear as Lockdown forced him to make the first few steps toward the glowing club.

"C'mon, kid. Let's see if we can't turn you around."

* * *

Stretched in his rock-hard bed in the cedar-scented dark, Prowl still couldn't make sense of it all... what was said, what it meant and how much of it was true. And how had the man the right to say anything at all?

While Lockdown's 'activities' were certain to make any sensible person horribly uncomfortable, his flat words scraped him as bare as the asphalt… and the upright young officer was shocked at how much he had wanted to get away from the situation—the _man_--simply because he didn't know how to _handle_ it, expertly and cleanly. There were no precise counterattacks to combat such chaos; Lockdown didn't adhere to the rules he lived by, unanswerable to any social law, and Prowl hated that helpless feeling, that gush of headache and chaos, even if… he kept coming back.

Through the excuses, whether he was escaping something or running towards something else, he kept coming back to the same infuriating, confusing man. The fact of it was, Lockdown was the only thing—person, idea, _force_--that had truly challenged him in… who knew how long, and there was something attractive about that even if he couldn't even begin to understand it through his waves of practiced repulsion.

Not thinking about it for over six hours and actively thinking about it for three had left Prowl with little else than exhaustion, confusion and, yes, throbbing discomfort--and in fifteen minutes and a cup of naturally-brewed coffee, he would be on the streets again, looking for the one man who had managed to hit him where it hurt. Who somehow… saw him as no one else had after a few talk-sparse meetings which Prowl never, ever should have allowed in the first place.

Groaning, the 'ninjacop' turned over and stuffed his pillow over his head, nearly biting the mattress in a burst of swollen teenaged anguish and rage. The _one time_ anyone understood him—no matter how invasive and painful the realization had been, not even taking into account the nonconsensual, manipulative, downright _blasphemous_ nature of the entire relationship--it had to be a smarmy, antagonistic, middle-aged drag-racer he was being paid to hunt down. Lord, but life was wonderful.

Maybe he should have stayed Catholic. At least it had given him justification for his misery: right now, he would have gladly taken his irrevocable state of ancestral depravity as a reason why he simply couldn't get so much as a quiet moment or a good night's sleep… or why, when he finally drifted off, he dreamt of a white-skinned devil.


	10. Intimacy

A/N: The alternate title for this chapter is WAKE UP PROWL. Well, moreso than the previous one… but don't let the name fool you too much. That said, pay attention to the dream: some pretty hardcore symbols/themes in there.

Otherwise, YAY SARI! Give the 'encounter' a chance—it's not meant to be creepy, but to teach Prowl something. Eeeeverything is to teach Prowl something.

AHHAHAAAA. As of last Friday, HUMANIZED FICS ARE CANON FOR TFA. Sorry, that required all caps. I don't feel like SUCH a fanwanker now. Muahhaha. MUAHAHA.

...Heeeeeeeeee.

* * *

Intimacy

* * *

It was Wednesday. Middle of the next week. A neutral enough day, if only it weren't separated from a sordid, rain-wet 4am debacle by nothing more than a blurry string of hours, all hand-marked by a very, very tired ninjacop.

Prowl had been in a relative daze for three days, dealing with the myriad of tensions between he and his housemates… each had something to say about his 'fit' and were taking their sweet time saying it. Otherwise, thrashing to maintain his sense of normalcy, he was still attempting to keep up his rigorous training schedule—one, mind, that required a good deal of soulful concentration and peaceful willpower, both of which he was very short on as his preoccupation spread like a disease, rotting the trained muscle all the way to the neatly-trimmed tips of his fingers. He was confused, short on sleep and prone to distraction. And so, Wednesday evening, when wandering past the main room with an uncharacteristic slouch, he heard whispering and stopped.

The commons was cavernous and dark, lit only with red and yellow blurs: glass-canned explosions from the TV. Bumblebee and his girlfriend were lounging in the Technicolor glow, skinny high-school limbs haphazardly intertwined. A leg looped there, an arm tucked there, heads together.

The girl was an odd one, taller than height-sensitive Bee by a few inches and quick becoming a staple denizen of their Project. 'Sari' was often to be found doing homework at their kitchen table or avoiding homework on their couch. A little female presence was appreciated: she helped Bulkhead with his often fumbling attempts at art, actually sat through Ratchet's stories with a smile and got along with their local Prime far better than her boyfriend of four months. She had the odd habit of blushing whenever she saw Prowl, perhaps due to his overwhelming 'ninja coolness' factor, but he was fond enough of her, even if he, with his signature opaque-sunglasses dispassion, initially labeled their match too artificial to last.

Given the circumstances of dumb infatuation and short-spent hormones so often found in teenagers, he was more than certain that Sari, the vibrantly colored, home-schooled daughter of the lauded (and loaded) Isaac Sumdac, would soon grow bored or irritated with Bumblebee's abrasive, scruffy yellow conduct and move back to her other admirers, stacked a city wide and a skyscraper tall and in far better financial states than their youngest housemate. From what he'd seen of the little beauty, however, Prowl was surprised in more than one way: she actually cared for him.

She loved what he loved: B movies, explosions, _legal_ car racing. She could beat Bumblebee at Ultimate Fighter with one hand tied behind her back. They laughed at the same things and plunged into the same immature debates with equal fervor; though Prowl did not know it, she had also threatened to break up with Bee after he stole the officer's motorcycle. They were… matched for one another—and at the moment, arguing back and forth about something on the couch, hidden hands pinching and poking.

"-ay, Bee. Not here!"

"C'mon!"

"There's—Ratchet—Bulkhead! Your cousin!"

"Half of 'em are at work. On patrol or something."

"Very comforting—also, no."

A pause, a brief (and in Sari's case, distraction-begging) turn of their heads as some vital plot-point whizzed past the screen, unnoted save for the brilliant colors. Then they were back to battling each other, each emitting little hisses and giggles.

"You know you want to."

"Oh, because you're 'just that good'?" Sari snorted, softening the jab with an indulgent kiss to his cheek. BB, ever the grinning opportunist, caught her before she could draw back, directing his blinding baby blue gaze to its best effect as he pressed their noses together.

"Please?" he whined, bottom lip inching out.

"Alright. _Alright_," she finally huffed, cupping his round, grinning face with a tolerant smirk. "Maybe a little. But if we get caught, I'm flaying you alive."

"Small price to pay."

"Good thing, considering you're broke."

"_Ouch_." Sari snickered as the unemployed youngster pulled her to his skinny chest, mock-glaring at him as he waggled a finger, reminding her: "That's okay, 'cos I have y--mff!"

Prowl's passing observation had outlived its credit, to be sure. Unfortunately, he never woke up, compartmentalized his observations of pre-make-out banter and passed on to more dignified activities: struck still by some force he could not name, he stayed where he was, quiet against the wall in the fringes of that glow. There was no voyeuristic thrill as the two teens fit together and twined and locked at their smallest, most delicate pink components: fingertips, lips. Eyelashes and brushed noses and soft breaths. They kissed, mouths parting then realigning. Against every sane, practical, politically correct value Prowl held more dear than his own blood, the physical exchange—a slow, shifting synergy—captivated him with its simple honesty.

It was a language all its own. Clothing rustled as Bumblebee reached up her side and inched forward, but Sari's dark hand coaxed him back down to her hip, fingers tangling with his as a sweet, shy mollification for the denied step: the boy smiled against her mouth and whispered something. She giggled, kissing him so hard he sputtered. There were several snorts, more laughter and a punch or two… then quiet touch again. These interruptions were natural, real, only adding to the cadence of _two people_. Bumblebee was a completely different creature in this girl's grip, an earnest, careful boy with fingers that tested before they touched. There was both giving and receiving with no exact demands: a flow of energy and adoration. Intense care, if not love. Comfort. Acceptance.

Prowl wasn't aware of the passage of time: the color palate changed, fading to serene purples and blues every so often as the simple act continued. When combined with the dreamy atmosphere, it was somewhat hypnotizing, bringing him to a soft place outside his own stiff, brittle body… so the young officer jumped just as high as the guilty party on the couch when someone cleared their throat loudly and pointedly enough to rival a gunshot. Prowl, heart pounding, looked down to see Ratchet at his side, arms crossed, glowering as the kids scrambled away from each other.

"_Out_," the old medic growled, staring straight at them without looking up at the ninja.

Bumblebee cursed stupidly. Sari, big red eyes landing specifically on Prowl (standing with an unreadable expression, thin mouth bent into a habitual frown), made a half-anguished, half-angry noise and sprinted out of the room. Bumblebee jumped up and followed, trotting at her heels as though knowing he was in for it. The teen waited until he was out of the room before yelling something back at Ratchet; something accusatory and snotty, surely, and therefore inferable enough.

"F'I wanted to see somethin' like that, I'd go online. My history channel special's on: strange enough, _same time as last week_," Ratchet snarled, waiting until he heard a door slam before moving. Heaving a rough sigh, he picked his thick-legged way toward his favorite couch and flopped down, turning over a cushion or two as he sullenly dug for the remote. "Stupid kid."

He liked Sari far too much to comment against her, but the boy she had chosen to date (who habitually drank the last of the milk from the carton and left the cardboard corpse in the fridge as a 'reminder' to pick up more) was still fair game. Knocked rudely out of his haze, Prowl took a few steps forward, then hung back—wondering what there was to say even as he knew he should say something. Ratchet had come in behind him; seen him _watching_, perhaps, and for how long? Irresponsible as Bumblebee was, did he himself respect no one's privacy? Prowl cleared his throat.

"Um. Ratchet, I—" he fumbled stiffly, hands fanned.

"Did I ask?" the old medic grunted, sending him a strangely appraising glance before settling in, turning on his '1990's Artillery' special and cranking the volume up to suit his old ears.

And that was that. Ratchet wasn't one for gossip or other's issues. It should have absolved Prowl of any guilt or possible pervert suspicions, but it didn't. Once more knocked astray from the path he tried to hard to follow, Prowl found it in himself to nod as though he understood and leave.

Once around the corner, he made a faint, melancholy noise as he leaned against the cool cement wall, wondering what in the world had kept him from simply walking on as he would have done any other normal, stable day. One hand nursed his strangely empty chest, both the void and the sternum-locked rib shield so incompatible with twining fingers and muffled chuckles and that trusting outward gush of warmth. Right as Prowl straightened to go back to his room, head hung low, he heard Ratchet shift and mutter from the main room, voice strangely sad and twice as tired under the scattered boom of long-rage missiles:

"Christ, gotta get out. Kid's gotta wake up and get out, or he's gonna hang himself with his own damn rope."

Prowl frowned and slowly rubbed his hand over his stinging eyes, allowing himself one last, lingering sigh before he shook his head and, like always, went back to work.

* * *

**Message 023 received: 14:23 UST.**

_--what did i tellyou about the whiskey?_

**Delete Message 023, 14:23 UST?**

**Message deleted.**

* * *

He wandered into the alleyway, this time.

A slow, explorative walk. Thick shadows. Thicker air, all cold. Sluggish.

Just like before, but with so much less yelling and slicing movement, Lockdown materialized from the black of the alley and caught him. Prowl knew it was the man from the overwhelming smell of cologne and mechanic trappings, and the way the bare, tattooed arms grasped him tightly against his firm chest. He struggled, but it seemed to be in thick purple water or syrup, perfunctory by default, but the older man didn't take him to the ground as before. He forced Prowl against the alley wall and pushed his black and gold helmet off. It clattered away. Prowl made an alarmed noise as the other pushed flush against him to stifle another unsteady thrash--and quivered in shock as a three-dimensional, smooth heat pressed against the seat of his khaki pants.

Lockdown's white arm banded his chest and clamped Prowl's arms to his sides, making his cheek scrape the alleyway wall. The officer gasped when the complex warmth of the other's face invaded the pale stretch of his neck; Lockdown breathed in heavily, sending a rich stripe of pinpricks down the other's neck as though he'd been licked and marked with tingling silver saliva, then reached downwards with his free real hand. Prowl bucked when he gripped between his legs, wondering crystal-clear what this had to do with the racing circuit; what this had to do with his new assignment, because patrol didn't include alleyways. The kneading contact sent something zinging through him, enough to force his mouth open; it only worsened when the hand unstrung his tightly-laced belt and dug inside, stroking and gripping through what thin material was left.

Crying out and thrashing in a sudden helter-skelter speed-up, he ordered the man to stop in the name of the law and Lockdown just laughed.

Then his well-structured accusations devolved into choked-off pleas in the form of legal procedure. He repeated the procedure for filing a report, the requirements for bringing someone to trial for petty theft—anything he could remember, all bursting out in rhythmic spurts because by then the other was pumping his fist viciously, calluses grating and scraping. His entire slender body seemed to scrunch and pulse around the assault, climax approaching quickly and messily; every inch of his cold-stung skin prickled, brittle and white atop the magma slurping through his taut muscles, pulsating in delicious time and siphoning into the cavern underneath his ribs. The flow rose toward his tight throat, filling, choking. He moaned in horror when Lockdown's mouth seized his blood-hot ear and sucked sadistically, sparking a startled gasp, a twitch, and several frightened breaths. His control starbursted upwards into the black sky.

He opened his eyes and squeezed them shut the second he did. A smear of fluid glistened on the rough alley wall. Lockdown's dirty, satisfied chuckle was there to cement his shame, vibrating in his ear and inflamed brainstem like an eight-cylinder engine.

"Graffiti."

He pointed. Made Prowl open his eyes. Lockdown slapped him on the ass.

"Defacin' public property, ninjacop. I'll get the cuffs so you can bring yourself in."

Looking down and realizing he had been cuffed all along, Prowl woke up with a gasp.


	11. To Take a Chance

A/N: Well, last chapter was somewhat of a surprise. I didn't intend Prowl's nightmare to be humorous in the slightest, but there you go. Guess I'm too in-tune with the boy, miserable and scared and brimming with secret self-loathing as he is.

Otherwise, HEY LOOK IT'S THE CHAPTER! :D Happy day! AFFnet holds the rest, you know the drill. I'm thinking it'll be under an Odd Couple 'collection' fic, because there's gonna be loads of mature stuff after this, so search for that. Oh yes, I tease!

I also apologize for Yoketron's utterly stereotypical nature. Ninja masters can only… really be done one way and I'm not so good with the cryptic soul-speak. Enghhh. Sorry, the underscore for this whole chapter is like HI HI YOU KNOW THAT PROWL KID HE IS HALF JAPANESE YEAH WITH THE PRITTY EYES AND THE BLOOD-BORNE SENSE OF CONSERVATISM AND THE PARENT-ENFORCED MANDATE TO CARRY ON THE VERY HETEROSEXUAL FAMILY LINE OR COMMIT SEPPUKU YEAH. Carry on.

...Hooray! I seat-wiggle in anticipation!

* * *

To Take a Chance

* * *

It all started with a broken motorcycle, so it only made sense (horrifying, damnable sense) that it should once more come down to Prowl's little black and gold custom bike, currently languishing in the communal garage at a very sad tilt.

It had been acting up lately, stalling if left to idle for more than a few seconds and generally refusing to be reawakened with any strength of kick-start. This was a very inconvenient occurrence if stranded in front of a line of angry Detroit commuters on a left turn lane, so Prowl understandably wished to solve the problem (and the honk-induced ringing in his ears) as quickly as possible. He was already harassed enough at home, he hardly needed strangers flipping him off in traffic.

Parked at his home desk for hours on end, the young officer cruised online ads without much gusto, clicking through endless Detroit repair facilities that offered everything from automatron dog-walker tune-ups to 'Pimp My Ride'-esque overhauls. He didn't have the slightest guess where to start. His motorcycle, no matter how he adored it, was a relatively new purchase and he'd only had it serviced twice: the first place he was severely unsatisfied with and the second… had been Lockdown.

No matter what else could be said about him, Lockdown was a fine mechanic. He had to be, suping up his own car to race illegally. Prowl sighed and shut his laptop with a disconsolate snap, nixing that last fact: rather, mercy-killing the whining, perfunctory protest his mind offered to keep him from doing the budding Stupid Thing in his mind. He toyed with his phone for a moment, chin in one hand. He was low on money, and if he was truly looking for the cheapest rates…

Breathing in hesitantly, he flipped open his phone and pulled up the only number besides his mother, father and housemates. He gave it a long, hazy, nearly nauseated look before click-click-clicking away.

_--You are at home?_

Fifteen minutes went by.

_--yeah?_

He pushed away from his desk, pocketed the phone and strode to the garage before he could see sense.

* * *

_Every Wednesday it was the same lately—only today, it was worse._

_Prowl struck out at the punching bag with a guttural, frustrated noise, clenching down hard on the sweat-soaked wraps around his numb fists. His gi was bathed with dirty sweat, oily coating streaked with clear fluid from his eyes—stressful overfill, unseen tears created by nothing more than the glaring dryness of his bloodshot eyes. It had been an hour since he arrived and the blows had not stopped, interrupted only every so often by a spinning kick or some other perfunctory 'skilled' embellishment as he simply drove in, abusing his body as much as the punching sack._

_He forced his tight muscles to execute angry snappings at odd angles, blind and ugly, jarring the pristine order of his bones. His fist glanced off the punching bag; pain just as hasty and tense as the blow flared in his twisted wrist, but he kept on. He was not syncing, not minding his crystalline posture, every move fraying like the fabric of his fevered mind—he was unraveling at the gyri, he was losing it to the cavern of his skull—to that _damn man_--he was to the barbaric point of not caring and he just wanted to _hit something--

"Prowl."

_The officer—student, first of all—did not look behind him; blood suddenly flowing cold under his sweat-soaked skin, he dropped to his knees and pressed his head to the school's floor, elbows fanned to either side._

_He kneeled there and tried to regulate his thin breaths, feeling a distinct sense of shame for his indecent, violent conduct join the heavy chill in his body as his sensei padded into the room behind him. Though he could not see the ancient man, he knew the rhythm of his serene, humble stride; he knew when Yoketron stopped behind him and could guess at the disappointed look on his weathered nut-brown face. Prowl drew in a tight breath, closing his eyes as though struck._

"_I am sorry, Sensei."_

_For a moment, there was nothing but silence from behind him. It was the most efficient way to wound, after all, and Yoketron was a calm creature of efficiency. He gave his student a moment to think about what he had done._

"_Your work—it is difficult?" Yoketron finally asked, voice unexpectedly soft as he passed a cool hand over the back of Prowl's red neck. The young man flinched at the touch even as it was a comfort. _

_He had been odd about people lately. There was a tense business and a sticky warmth to everyone else's skin at the moment that repelled the young officer—he couldn't bear being brushed and he was wound so tightly that crowds nearly undid him—but Yoketron's dry skin emitted some sort of clean, safe space. A calming vibration._

"_Yes," he whispered to the floor, mentally grasping for that calmness in the black of his lids._

_Yoketron waited another moment—Prowl remained on his knees, simply breathing into the safe space in between his chest and his arms—then sat down with a gentle, pensive groan. Standing up was too much for him sometimes, regardless of his physical prowess, and the old sensei delighted in chuckling and sitting while his students did various endurance exercises involving the very muscles he was resting. Now, however, he settled himself by Prowl in the bare training room, gazing at the wall for a short time before speaking._

"_I have waited long to speak to you, Prowl. I waited because I hoped, with time, that the problem would resolve itself and there would no longer be a need—but now I see I was incorrect."_

"_Sensei?" Prowl asked hesitantly._

"_Do not mistake me: I do not intend to sound like a fortune cookie," he said mildly, meticulous, elegant enunciation eating the silly word whole. Prowl dared to raise his head if only to shake it vehemently, but his sensei patted the ground beside him. "Please, sit with me."_

_Long face somber and faintly worried, Prowl sat back on his haunches with a creak of tense white bones, unconsciously nursing the wrist he had jarred earlier. Seeing him encircle it with his other hand, Yoketron motioned for it with his long, willowy fingers; Prowl complied, frown growing as his master pressed and searched along his tendons with kind, slow fingers, kneading the pain away._

"_I have taught you. I have trained you," Yoketron began carefully, in time with his thumbs. "Most of all, I have watched you. You are one of my favorite students."_

_He held up a hand when Prowl murmured (or choked, thickly) his thanks, wanting nothing more than this submissive position and the affection of this learned man—the only one who gave freely and the only person he had ever known to favor him in any respect. His sensei shook his head, smiling slightly. _

"_How long has it been?"_

"_Six years, Yoketron."_

"_And you have grown up nicely in that stretch, if I may say so."_

"_Thank you."_

_It was a passive understatement: as though Yoketron had watched him grow up instead of shaping him into the man he was currently, technique by technique, ideal by ideal. The discipline had gifted Prowl with a focus and a purpose he could not have survived without, particularly in high school. It was his dose of sanity, his stability. It was, in a way, his only source of solace and surely Yoketron knew that; surely he saw the way the young man's defensive, rigid expression always melted into something malleable and earnest upon entry those first two years… Every Wednesday, Prowl was finally in a safe place that not even his own home could afford him._

"_You came to me at a young age. Younger than most, and with no simple curiosity of martial arts. You are the only one who knows why you chose to pursue this discipline—your motivations, your simple circumstances--but I feel I know why. You have shown it to me in every technique I have taught you."_

_Prowl's face darkened in confusion. Yoketron motioned at the full-wall mirror that framed the two of them kneeling side by side. They looked a little alike at that distance, master and student, but that was wishful thinking from the boy at the old man's side, who had grasped for anything to relate him to his sensei since he could remember—to a strong, noble man in simple, folding clothes as opposed to a brittle businessman in a sterile blue suit. Yoketron continued._

"_It is reflection—your art comes from you and you alone, suffering in turn what plagues you. Your style is troubled, Prowl. Do you understand my meaning?"_

"_I believe so, sensei."_

_He paused, reaching and taking a sip of the water he brought in; his snow-white brows knitted over his sharp, elegant eyes. When he spoke again his voice was darker and Prowl felt the clench come on—the need to prove himself. _

"_What you were doing a moment ago—"_

"_I'm sorry," Prowl hissed painfully, clenching his eyes and shaking his head. Shame rose hot in his throat. "I know it was improp--"_

"_No, Prowl. You cannot ignore it," Yoketron interrupted him sternly, his tan, smooth-skinned face grave as he searched the young man's anxious expression for any hint of true understanding. He clasped the hand in his own. "Your soul is attempting to solve something through the only medium it knows and yet you do not heed it. I say I have been watching you? I can see that you are poisonous, Prowl. You have a stiffness and a bitterness in you--toxic energy. It spreads, if unattended, and your art will only be the first thing that suffers from it. You cannot simply press emotions and worries down and pray they depart with the next gust of wind. They will boil over."_

"_I am in control!" Prowl burst out, louder than he ever intended. Every word from the older man seemed to pile on his cracking shoulders until it was a struggle simply to stay upright; until something burst. He regretted it the moment he said it—it was pretentious and stupid, something expected only from a child—but Yoketron merely shook his head and placed Prowl's now numb hand onto his knee with a brief, bracing touch._

"_Control is not the same thing as peace, gakusei," he said softly. Prowl's fine features flickered, succumbing quickly to defeat and sadness as he took to rubbing his wrist again, though most of the pain was gone. His sensei let him have a moment; when the young officer was ready to look up at him again, delicately slanted eyes searching his own for answers—though all Yoketron could give was instruction—he smiled. _

"_Purging is a painful process but it is what must be done to start anew. You have much to chase from you and you cannot grow any further without changing the way you live your life. If there is time for me to say something, it must be now. Would you truly care to know my advice, Prowl?"_

"_Yes, sensei," he murmured after a long, tremulous pause, unable to help himself from closing his eyes._

"_Pay attention to yourself. Confront what pains you." _

_In his self-imposed blindness, Yoketron rose from Prowl's side in a husky slide of white and black robes. A bird-bone hand, capable of smashing through fifteen layers of bricks with a tight blow, settled on the young man's bare neck._

"_Only you can end your suffering."_

* * *

Denial was a wonderful thing.

In daylight hours, in blue jeans, Lockdown was nothing but an impersonator: a middle-aged wisher, a fame-guzzler with a fancy, ugly car and a rotten sense of humor. There had not been a race since he met the man so there was no proof of any kind, incriminating or absolving, and the chance that he could be faking the entire thing as a cry for attention was very, very real. It was so real, in fact, that Prowl was able to pull up in front of his strange lean-to house with a silky crunch of old gravel and walk to the open garage without missing a step. Much like when dealing with nightmares, the sunlight was an unfathomably comforting force—and something that Lockdown ducked from when emerging from the dark of the garage, popping the captive screwdriver out of his mouth and grinning, slow and sweet as molasses.

"Well-well-well," he slurred pleasantly, settling himself on his two biker-booted feet. He waited for Prowl to take off his new samurai-detailed helmet before nodding and beginning to wipe his hands on a rag. Even in the winter day, he wore nothing more than a sleeveless, paint-spattered black-and-green t-shirt and ripped jeans. "Hey ninjacop."

Prowl murmured something close to a greeting, growing more grateful for the blinding winter sun by the moment: it let him keep his sunglasses on, concealing his ground-plowing eyes. Lockdown cocked his head, looking back at his ramshackle house and stuffing the rag back in his pocket before making a grizzled, somewhat impressed noise.

"The hell'd you find me? Last time you were here, you were half asleep and drunk on water and leaves."

"I have my own vaguely illegal means of maintaining information," Prowl non-answered primly, one thin brow cocked and hands sweating madly on the insides of his gloves.

"Touché," Lockdown chuckled, crossing his arms. "A'right. Now that we've done how, let's go to the why. What can I, uh… do for you?"

Red ears sticking on that last sentence, Prowl only hesitated a bare, _sane_ second before stepping aside and gesturing to his waiting bike down the drive. It came easily, as though it were the most natural, ordinary thing in the world, to go to a suspected criminal to have a bike serviced when there were hundreds—no, _thousands_ of automotive services in the City of Automobiles. Really, if it were anything more than a hand-gesture, he may not have managed all the deceit involved.

"I need a tune-up."

"You or your bike?" Lockdown asked dubiously, then grinned again. "'Cos I do both."

"My—my b—_what_?"

Lockdown's grin expanded, red eyes fixing on Prowl (whose quizzical, somewhat hysterical expression was complemented by a perfect 'o' for a mouth) for a pointed moment before he laughed and rolled his broad, tattoo-plastered shoulders. He turned and walking towards the garage. Prowl, lethally disoriented as always, stood somewhat helplessly in the long driveway until the older man turned back and shouted over his shoulder:

"Pull the sucker up, I'll take a look."

Prowl stood in the garage for the next forty-five minutes, enduring first the concentrated silence of Lockdown investigating his motorcycle's nameless stalling condition, then the racer mocking him about how he apparently _didn't_ know how to 'handle his own equipment' as he had claimed so many nights ago. In truth, he had been so busy (and repeatedly traumatized) that he hadn't been looking after the basic necessities of his machine and it had run down in the meantime between scheduled checkups.

Otherwise, the encounter offered him a pleasant bit of stability: thus absorbed in his hobby and up to his wrists in grease, Lockdown in business mode was something Prowl could handle. The man was sturdy and brusque, practically inoffensive if the officer ignored the sideways glances at his khaki-wrapped rear end. Perhaps Lockdown was even making an effort to be _nice_ or _normal_, giving the officer tips on how to keep his exhaust pipe clean, and so forth. After the initial rush of terror faded, Prowl was almost comfortable, leaning against his chosen tool-table and simply listening. Then Lockdown looked up and told him he was done.

Prowl didn't know whether it seemed anticlimactic, futile, or just strange to have to face the dangerous man in such a mundane way before walking away from him and returning to the Project—like always. He stood staring at Lockdown for a moment or two, watching him clean up his scattered tools in the dark garage. When he straightened up, Prowl opened his mouth and whatever came out, came out.

"Also. I was… looking to have a… modification put on my motorcycle," Prowl admitted suddenly, groping along word by word. Noticing the other's eyebrow drift up, he resettled his precious sunglasses and cleared his throat. "I will pay you."

"Good, 'cos it'll add up nice with what I was plannin' on chargin' you for this," Lockdown grunted, giving the stiff little officer a sideways look and wiping at a bit of grease on his white cheek. "Whaddya lookin' for?"

"Something unique," Prowl offered blankly. Lockdown thought about it for a minute, mentally sifting through all the spare parts he had lining the walls, all different modifications for different machines. Though Prowl did not see it, a curling, truly evil grin spread across the old racer's face the moment he turned away; then, with a speed only borne of decades of mischief, Lockdown cleaned up his slip in a single second and looked back with a nonplussed expression.

"Maybe a side-car?"

"For what purpose?" Prowl asked, truly befuddled. Who would be with him on patrol, much less of a small enough size to fit into a sidecar? His first thought was Bumblebee, which made him gag slightly. The teen owned a truly filthy yellow bug, currently out of commission due to an 'unfortunate accident he had nothing to do with', and all Prowl could think of was the soda-encrusted butt-print his housemate would leave in his pristine non-existent sidecar. He shook his head, clearing his overactive imagination.

"I'unno. Thought it'd look good," Lockdown slurred, shrugging.

"It would cause far too much drag. Useless," Prowl snorted, then gave the racer a prickly look he hardly saw. "Contrary to your beliefs, life isn't _just_ about appearance: performance is the key."

"And when you find a model that combines both, you should sink your teeth in." Lockdown glanced over his mod-wall one last time before turning back to him, giving Prowl a silky up and down with a quirk of his mouth, hardly stopping his stride to murmur: "M'surprised that I let you leave the first time you were here."

Prowl's hands spasmed; he dropped the wallet he was fiddling with, making some sort of mangled Panic Noise. He was getting quite good at those—this one was accompanied with an ugly flush up his neck and a screaming inward inquiry of _what the hell he was doing_. He stooped for the wallet and muscled himself into proper posture after a moment, ignoring the fact he couldn't quite answer his own question. He turned to Lockdown, now leaning on his gaudy street-machine.

"Please," Prowl grit out needlessly, then pointed. "My motorcycle?"

"Nope. My car."

"What?"

"Your bike won't fit both of us," Lockdown answered easily, popping the driver side open and nodding toward the other side with a slick smirk. "We're goin' shopping. Get in."

* * *

It was terrifying, how it became easier to get into Lockdown's car every time.

The outing was no more than three hours: relatively short, when looking for an accessory for a very particular brand of motorcycle with a color-scheme that could not be compromised for any reason (a fact that Lockdown became very, very familiar with after Prowl's third obsessive-compulsive explanation of what color-scheme _meant_). They, officer and criminal, browsed specialty shops who knew Lockdown by name, picking through shelves of glossy shell-sets and offering their finds for one another's critique. They were mostly silent, communicating with gestures and noises in the very image of masculine bonding, but when they did speak, it wasn't… bad.

Prowl expected to be on his toes the entire time, dreading even as he got into the car the strange, twisted conversations Lockdown would force him into. It was not so. Finally, after a bit of digging around in a bargain bin, Prowl decided on a 'legit' set of police lights for the back of his bike—something to compliment the white flashers he had in the front. Lockdown chortled at his find and rolled his eyes, engulfing the narrow bars in his huge hand and striding up to the front of the store with Prowl at his heels.

Moreover, as their outing began at four and lasted three hours, it gave Lockdown, a considerate criminal, very little sunlight to anchor the self-powered lights to the back of the officer's bike. He did not have lighting in his garage, so when the last of the short winter day faded into deep, velvet blue at seven or eight, he had to fumble in the dark in order to connect the last of the wires. Prowl, huddled in his leather jacket under the awning while Lockdown labored with bare arms, watched as the racer turned the red and blue lights on for his sake. He let them blink like a little cartoon beacon for a minute before tossing his tools in a corner and stretching. Once more, he was done, and it seemed like it was for good this time.

Prowl nervously warmed his hands with his breath as the older man lazily cleaned up again, caught in that messy ground between abandoning a plan not yet hatched and making his immature, haphazard machinations obvious. It was impossible to feign the normal flow of a _social_ evening, that much he knew, but right when he stumbled forward to make a very large mistake, Lockdown saved him—or doomed him—by pausing at the door to the garage, looking back and asking him if he wanted a beer.

Prowl didn't know whether to tense up or sag with relief, but managed to nod. Five minutes later, Lockdown was pressing a very battered receipt and a cold beer into his hands, sitting him down on the couch opposite his own oversized red armchair—the very same couch he'd slept on two months ago—and lighting up a cigar. Prowl dug out the money necessary for his purchase and asked him if he could make change; Lockdown could, no matter how crumpled the bleached ones and fives looked against the beautifully crisp bills Prowl offered.

They traded small talk afterwards. Horrible, normal small-talk that wasn't as horrible as it could have been.

Prowl distracted himself by finally getting a good look at the cramped, unique abode that the older man called home. There was a pin-up (surprisingly female) on one wall, but that was the only sign of lechery he could spot. With every mediocre exchange in between beer gulps and cigar-puffs, the young officer grew more tense. Like curtains closing, the sky outside darkened into a dangerous purple; he barely suppressed a wince each time he sipped at the unwanted, over-carbonated beverage, even if Lockdown seemed unaffected by the scent of a plan outpaced by its owner, or the tightening noose of awkwardness. Finally, after taking a particularly long drag of his cigar, Lockdown quirked a pale brow and leaned back, setting a foot up on the coffee table between them.

"You come here for anything besides a pick-me-up for your ride, kid?"

"N-no," Prowl stammered, immediately hiding his aghast expression in another attentive study of the beer ingredient label. Lockdown just chuckled, shaking his head.

"Didn't say you had to answer right away. I'll give you a minute to think—chew the phraseology over a bit. Get back to me when you aren't stutterin'."

Thus ordered, Prowl _thought_--and that was the most dangerous part.

What did he expect from this? This was no simple fear-facing exercise. To some extent, he had bought into the other's advances: there was no other reason he would put himself in such a situation, rife with the implied threat of advance because he _knew_ how to recognize threat. He was there, wasn't he? Against all common sense, against everything he had been taught and taught himself, he had still put himself in this situation. He was _there_.

What did he want?

"I don't know," he muttered, tingling mind refusing to carry anything further than one logic step.

"I dunno either," Lockdown offered helpfully, grinning at the primly-postured young man through the pungent smoke from his cigar. The racer seemed to delight in his pensive squirms, if only because it meant the kid _did_ have some idea what he expected… and it made him nervous. He liked seeing Prowl nervous—or liked seeing Prowl nervous because of him. Prowl's expression only darkened into something short of a glower; he placed the barely-touched beer aside with a shake of his head.

"I… apologize. I should go," he said stiffly, beginning to rise to his feet. "I came here under false pretenses."

"Hold on, hold on. I wasn't shovin' you out. Christ, you're touchy," Lockdown snorted, chuckling with every word. He put out a hand to keep the other on the couch. "Actually, false pretenses are my favorite kinda pretenses. Just askin'… to make the night go smoother, understand--whaddya want?"

"I said I don't know," the officer repeated, a hint of irritation surfacing.

"Okay. Then what can I give you?"

It was painfully obvious.

The sentence was loaded, if not with the attentive, intensely sexual look that accompanied it (alongside a thick hand dabbling on the inside of a muscled, jean-wrapped thigh) than the open-ended nature of it that begged to be taken advantage of. And Prowl could have taken it. Heart thumping, knowing it was precisely what the ruffian wanted to hear—'some of your time', 'companionship', 'a night', allowing him so many euphemisms that would have let him bypass _what he was doing_—he could thrown away the last of his sanity and bitten the lure he told himself he didn't want. Had never wanted.

It was _ludicrous_, to want something like that.

Lockdown grinned, watching the young cop pale underneath the yellow lights of what he called his living room. He could see the thoughts grinding painfully through the other's head, fighting _the corset_. Prowl's long, elegant face screwed up, then (when the man's unwavering, lidded stare birthed a buzzing in his ears from the _pressure_) he gasped:

"…Tea."

"Tea?" Lockdown repeated blankly.

"Tea."

"Christ," the racer finally chuckled, low and slow, then heaved himself up and lumbered off into the cramped kitchenette to make some goddamn tea.

Prowl, run ragged, nearly sagged against the couch once the racer was (mostly) out of sight. For both of their sakes, Lockdown didn't conduct a back and forth yelling conversation from the kitchenette: the kid needed some time to himself after that... close call. He'd almost let himself go, there. Must've needed a minute or two to re-lace himself back into shape, and a minute or seven Lockdown would gladly give him. It was more fun that way.

The kid really was horribly sweet and _young_, despite that sterile streak. Get him out of his tried-and-true tracks and he was just as vulnerable as any twenty-something year old with doubts, rules and a boxed-up libido. Probably more so, as he wasn't accustomed to losing control. Lockdown knew a basket case when he saw one and Prowl fit every marker: he practically needed a bag to hyperventilate into after being hit on. Kid was wound up onto himself to rival a sailor's knot.

Lockdown trundled back into the living room after a while, grunting about how he only had the quick-easy brown stuff with caffeine. Prowl nodded dumbly and reached for the chipped mug; the other sat down next to him on the old couch and stared at him, causing the officer's hands to shake so severely he nearly spilled the stuff on himself.

"Good save, there," Lockdown commented dryly, leaning beside him. His hand, perched on the top of the couch, slid within inches of Prowl's neck.

"Ninjitsu reflexes," Prowl said faintly, smile wan as he fought the jittery, brainstem urge to scoot away. Lockdown, as if sensing the aversion and desiring to inflame it, bent closer and lowered his gravelly voice to an engine's purr.

"I was talkin' about asking for the tea."

Prowl clenched his eyes shut behind his glasses, heart giving one very, very painful throb that reverberated into his numb digits. Lockdown chuckled.

"You wanna come clean to me?" He reached out and knuckled the officer's chin, dragging along his jaw before rumbling lecherously: "Promise, with what I'm thinkin', I'm in no place to judge."

"You confuse me," Prowl began softly after a long, steadying exhalation, cupping his damp hands around his mug. There were so many things he could say: about how he hunted for the man at night and how deeply Lockdown had infuriated him, yet they sat here, nearly at ease with each other—so long as he was in jeans and that loose smile. He breathed in, then sighed, waves of inner conflict nearly choking him. "You are… at least twice my age."

"And you're already dead, in here," Lockdown parried, tapping the officer's temple. Prowl flinched away. "Old, stiff and inflexible. Figure, enough time with me and I might give you back twenty years of your life. Then we'd be pretty well matched, y'think?"

Prowl shook his head, stiffening when the previous tap lingered and wandered down behind his jawline, making his bare neck erupt into silver tingles with the older man's hot breath in his ear.

"'Sides, I still hold up to time's tests in the best'a ways. Gimme an hour or two and I'll prove it."

That clenched it. Who was he dallying with?

"I made a mistake," Prowl said suddenly, placing the tea to the side with a resigned clunk and bracing his numb hands on the couch. "Optimus was correct."

"That's the second drink you've turned your nose up at in ten minutes," Lockdown growled, smoothly aborting his exit by grabbing the chipped mug and forcing it back into his hands with a firm-enough shove. "Whatever sense'a hospitality I've got is about to up and kick your ass if you don't down that sludge. You asked for it, I made it, you drink it."

Stunned, Prowl just stared at him. Lockdown glared back.

"What, d'you need help?"

Prowl raised the cup to his lips, eyes unfathomably wide behind his glasses.

"Good kid. Now—" He pointed at Prowl's hands, glowering. "Sit. Stay. Finish."

Reduced to following orders from a man he did not know in the slightest, Prowl muscled back a grimace and took a deep drink of the instant tea. The gritty brown chemicals prickled on his tongue, leaving an acrid coating that wouldn't go away no matter how many times he swallowed. He worked on the disgusting stuff for a good five minutes in the creaking brown silence of the other man's house, once more wondering faintly what he was doing even as he was doing it—or _not_ doing it, as he should surely be pushing his way up from the couch and striding out, back to his circle of safety. He should be escaping, but he couldn't dredge himself from the nervous rhythm of the mug against his lips and the heat against his side, heart beating a thousand miles per hour in his cavernous chest.

After another few minutes of dumb drinking, even swallowing came to a complete halt when Lockdown shifted (another rash of cologne or deodorant and mechanic sweat) and ground a heavy arm along the back of the couch and over his shoulders, pressing towards him.

"Hey," he said softly, grabbing and tilting his chin around from the mug. "I'm thirty-eight, kid. That ain't bad."

"You are lying," Prowl said after a moment of searching his weathered, tattooed face.

"Yeah." The racer shrugged. "You need t'hear anything else before you give in? Make you sleep better afterwards?"

He could have riled at how the man was assuming so much—had been assuming all night—but he couldn't find the concentration to do so with him so close, especially when his wide, handsome mouth came level with his ear and he muttered:

"Lemme kiss you."

The vibration and the heat were one and the same, making the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Something burst in him so hard he nearly shuddered, provoking a lime-lit adrenaline rush that made his head swim. He was in a strange place with a strange person. He had long imagined his first sexual encounter to be with a mediocre girl under mediocre settings, not crammed against a worn leather couch with a dry mouth tasting of instant tea and beer, with a man half-draped over him in the dull yellow lighting—a man who made his stomach turn in so many incomprehensible ways. But it was happening. It had already happened, in a sense.

Breath stopping in his sore chest, he nodded.

It was no more than a tip of his head, before he, eyes pinned on the cushion between them (patch of olive-green fabric, sewed on haphazardly where the leather had split), turned his head toward Lockdown. The racer snorted, not a little amused at his awkward nature, and snagged his glasses off his straight nose with a flick of his thick fingers. Prowl made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a scoff, then those red eyes were leveled with his and his body became so hot he nearly died.

"A Jap, huh."

Stung, Prowl pressed his lips tightly together, fine brows knitting as he almost turned away. Lockdown grabbed his chin, easy as anything, and pressed into his mouth. Prowl inhaled through his nose, sharp and short, a sweet tremble radiating from the simple scraping contact and gathering in his chest as the racer's masculine scent flooded him again. It wasn't an exemplary kiss, but the tension between them spiked everything like the whiskey Lockdown was so fond of.

It began to improve—indeed, outpace expectations—when the older man's warm hand scooped around his back in the doughy couch and he inhaled and drew the young officer closer, mouths parting then realigning with a crisp sound. Prowl's expertly organized mind blanked, heart pulsing intoxicatingly; the electric arousal trickling straight to his groin only stopped when Lockdown once more cupped his jaw with his cold hand and tried, with a brash split-second push, to deepen the kiss into something wet and twisting.

Prowl broke away with something dangerously close to a moan, adrenaline jumping to the surface of his skin and making him cold all over. After a split second of staring at his lap and shaking down to his bones, he reached for his sunglasses and crammed them back into place, having trouble breathing with those shrewd red eyes on him.

"Please. Do not…" he managed, fighting his tight throat to even breathe, then shook his head. "Just please."

"What—don't tempt you?"

Prowl looked to the side, the bitter, nauseated twist of his mouth communicating what Lockdown could easily guess: _do not cause me to lose control._ It was too much to say—admit—that Prowl didn't know what he was doing; that he was scared beyond words at both the possible act and the fact of what it _made_ him, but Lockdown cut him off.

"You don't get me, kid." he said sharply, one thick hand capturing the opening of Prowl's leather jacket and tugging slightly—only worsening the dramatic, drugging force that relentlessly drew the young man to him and his warm mouth. "I won't force anything on you, but you look like you're gonna choke on your own sex-drive if you don't loosen up and let someone take care'a you. I can promise you a good time and a solid dose of what you need and nothin' past that. F'you want it, you can walk outta here tomorrow and I won't bug you. Ever. I call that bein' damn generous and I'm never generous. I'm reachin' here, so you'd better have a real good reason to tell me no, ninjacop."

Lockdown cocked his brow, searching the officer's white face.

"You got one?"

"Not… particularly," Prowl whispered faintly, still swallowing the fact he wasn't really being given a chance to decide or think, but mostly stunned by the alluring proximity of the other man—scent, texture and heat.

"Then you're outta luck," Lockdown told him, rough face melting into an indulgent, sleepy grin as he once more removed Prowl's glasses; the young man blinked owlishly even in the low light, wincing to be deprived of his primary ice-blue shield, much less have his dark, slanted eyes locked with the searing red ones in front of him. Lockdown's knuckles clipped his cheek on the way down to his lap, grin widening. "Good. You're so pretty, don't think I'dve listened to reason anyways."

Prowl made a muffled, shocked sound when the old racer flipped his glasses onto the table and grabbed him by his waist, pulling him closer. Lockdown's mouth brashly rimmed his ear before setting upon his smooth neck, kissing and sliding lower in no particular hurry. Squirming, nerves exploding, heart slamming at his ribcage in an effort to _get out_ if just to combust in the sleepy warm air, Prowl grabbed for the first thing he could get a hold of. It just so happened to be Lockdown's leg, which just so happened to receive a violent digging-in of nails when the racer's strong teeth nipped at the nape of Prowl's neck: an incredibly horrified noise followed.

"You're a pervert," Prowl hissed blankly, realizing this fact two months and two drinks too late as he struggled with the convulsive sensations making his uncharted body an overheated playground. Lockdown just chuckled and slipped his huge real hand over the tightly-laced front of the policeman's pants, pressing just hard enough to elicit a stifled gasp for air.

"True. But I promise you this: y'won't find a better pervert in all of Detroit, kid. You're in good hand."

Prowl, more than hysterical, snorted before he could stop himself, but one hand was all Lockdown needed. He could have conquered the world with two.


	12. Awake

A/N: WOOWOO. Sorry about all the Torque, but I love the contrast between her and Prowl: Prowl's wonder at a completely free person, sexually comfortable and expressive and independent, is super-cute to see. It's obvious with Lockdown, too, but Torque is a bit safer and not so inflammatory. Plus, she'll lead him back to Lockdown in the end :3

Also, Seiberwing and my darling beta brought up LD commenting on Prowl's (half) Japanese-ness, and I realize it may have seemed a little random. But I have my reasons! (**Pay no attention to the following rant if you don't care about character psychology and stupid symbolism. Really. RUN**.)

It's a double-layered issue: first, Prowl wears his sunglasses _all_ the freaking time. No seriously, all the time, even when you thought he wasn't--like inside and at night. They're those cool high-tech mabobbers that lighten and darken with sunlight while still being glazed (he has _minute_ nearsightedness, so in the former instance they're more like one-way glasses), so it's not as inconvenient/ridiculous as it sounds. He _covets_ that external defense and never goes anywhere without it. So yes, Lockdown had figured 'his eyes' out beforehand, but as Prowl is so ridiculously secretive about everything and keeps even that semi-mundane facet of his identity hidden a bid to stay uninvolved and anonymous, it's as though it _should_ have been an epiphany to see him with his glasses off while sitting three feet away, so LD comments on that rather than his actual race.

It's also significant for him to be Japanese instead of just 'Asian'. It's LD's strange, cockeyed, racial-slurry way of saying 'I'm interested in you—you specifically.' No one else has ever afforded him (or been ballsy enough to pursue) that curiosity beyond 'that freaky Asian kid' and it's a pretty shaping part of his identity, family-wise… not to mention something painful he'd rather avoid, much like emotions in general. Catching a let's-rattle-Prowl's-cage theme, yes? Lockdown's forcing (or will force) Prowl to think about himself, which he neeeever does, 'cos there's too much unpleasantness involved.

At least. That's. Um. Kinda. WhatIwasshootingfor. In three words. Eh. …I don't smoke crack, I promise. Just fandom.

Also, (**ignore me ignore me ignore me**_**) **__since_ I'm doing some explaining, this made me laugh my face off that somebody noticed, but I'll say that Prowl went through the dreaded condom-on-a-banana sex ed experience because he, you're right, went to a public middle school. I'm staging this in future-Detroit with the hopes of earlier/liberal sex ed, but then his parent(s) pulled him out (with much embarrassing ranting and raving) because it was UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE TO MENTION SEX LIKE IT IS ACCEPTABLE EXCEPT FOR BABIES, GLORIOUS PENIS-PLUS-VAGINA GOD-BABIES. They home-schooled him for half a year until he could go to a super-strict catholic high school, where he suffered. A lot.

REAL HEALTHY, ACCEPTING FAMILY BTW. Prowl TOTALLY doesn't have any snakes in his closet regarding shame associated with sexuality, nopenopenope. I'll go into a high-school experience or two, promise, but I don't wanna bore you with his wangstastic whining. 'Cos he does whine. A (hell of a freaking mary mother of OH MY GOD) lot.

Enjoy the sexy-time aftermath :B Dur.

* * *

Awake

* * *

The world allowed him one single, peaceful moment of shifting lazily in the sheets, hands sifting through the mess to find a worn-down pillow to tuck under his cheek—but even that wasn't right.

Prowl, a tirelessly precise soul, always woke up to the blare of his alarm at 6am, no matter the day. This was quiet and blurry and not 6am. His senses wandered past the warm sheets. The pillow was too worn-down. It smelled different: smoke and bland cleaner, underscored by cologne and velvet skin-smell. The smell wasn't his. The ceiling wasn't his. Nor was the bed.

All of it belonged to the white, tattoo-marred man sprawled atop the sheets a mere foot away, radiating heat even in a deep sleep.

Adrenaline roaring to the top of his skin, Prowl inhaled sharply and jerked away, wrenching up the loose navy sheets to cover his chest. The movement made Lockdown—the suspect, his _tormenter_—grumble and roll to the side in luxurious slow-motion, his mangled white back glowing in the weak light from the dust-choked shutters. One hand pressed to his mouth to muffle his rapid breaths, Prowl untangled himself from the sheets—_stained_, his skin was sticky and filthy—and, with only a few seconds of horrified staring to his credit, flew into a frenzy searching for his clothes.

The young officer, shaking from head to foot, crammed his numb naked ridiculous _aching_ body into underwear and pants and a shirt, armoring himself again with the fervor of one expecting an attack. He searched for his socks for far longer than he should have, Lockdown's slow and steady breath enflaming his sense of urgency, then abandoned them to the warm, musky dark and went for the door. His brain was scorched, practically flaking off in chunks as he tried to gather his sore limbs and brain-cells and function and get out of there, because it was unthinkable—

He flung the door open, wide eyes directed over his shoulder at the sleeping giant, except the door did nothing but stagger in its frame and make a horribly sharp rattling noise. Gunshot. Prowl cringed, heart in his throat, then tried again, slowly, hands white and shaking. Something caught. Something was caught, something was caught—something _sticking_--

"Y'gotta jiggle it."

Of course. Old house.

Prowl froze then turned around mechanically, horror-struck. He was caught, deprived of a silent and blameless exit: in reality, he had been caught the moment Lockdown, the grinning liar, had paused a split-second in their groping the previous night and twitched at the lock of his finicky old door to prevent just such a thing. But Prowl didn't know. He couldn't think that far ahead or that far behind, mind caught in his nauseating rash of bad luck as he was forced to face the disgusting man he had… surrendered to. Sexually.

Lockdown was thankfully waist deep in dark rumpled sheets, regarding him calmly from above his sculpted, barb-wire-emblazoned arms. He nodded, smirking.

"Mornin' ninjacop."

When Prowl only looked down at the floor, face bleaching, Lockdown rearranged himself sleepily, inhaling and cocking a brow.

"Looks like you got somethin' on your mind."

Whether that _something_ was the terror of waking up beside him or the shameful throes that came before it, Prowl turned back toward the door and began to claw at the handle again, tugging stiffly.

"Simply someplace to be," he muttered, the unyielding stupid clank-clank-clank of the door-latch mimicking and enflaming his haphazard heartbeat.

"Wanna talk about it?"

He didn't know which was worse: the fact that the cretin was absurdly catering to his invisible shudders and hideous discomfort, or the fact he probably would have responded in further farce if Prowl said yes. Prowl stiffened and grit his teeth.

"There is nothing to _discuss_," he hissed out, finally jiggling just like he'd been told and—air, escape—wrenching the door open with a crack and a creak and simply running. Through the house, past the flat beer, the mug, his receipt. Out of his stained skin and back onto his purring motorcycle waiting in the frigid November air, then down the highway.

The tarmac miles did nothing to put the scraping sensations behind him. He could still feel the older man's hand on his jaw, sliding lower. Gritting his teeth again, wind-tears pricking at his eyes, Prowl twisted his wrist and his motorcycle roared his gut-wrenching frustration, taking him toward the scalding shower he would stand in for an hour and scrape himself down to his white, untouched bones.

Back in the bedroom, Lockdown shook his head and exhaled, then rolled over. He muttered something he'd never bothered to remember about some city not being built overnight and fell back asleep in his cooling sheets.

* * *

He was going through the motions—which would have been some small measure of comfort, if he hadn't been shaking the entire time.

Monday. Patrol. Dark streets, the perfect chaser for tense, disgusted dreams that made him feel like a stranger in his own sweat-slick skin. Prowl took his only comfort in the act of moving forward with his bike beneath him, sifting through streets the way one would card through a stack of magazines without glasses. He couldn't stand being out; couldn't stand being anywhere but in his room at the moment, knees under his chin.

He would have given anything to catch Lockdown on the streets a week ago. Now the very thought of it made his mind blank. A breathless swerve or a missed light wasn't uncommon that night: he could hardly see—or think—past his own 'Jap' nose.

The young officer passed street after street, encountering a few all-night bars dolled up with neon greens and blues and purples. It was of no consequence until, on his third round past a certain block around 3am, he heard some commotion behind a particularly well-lit bar. Hesitating only a moment—why hesitate, it was his _job_, but the unsure sickness and self-alienation had seeped down into his very bones—he gave the empty streets one last look and veered into the half-hidden parking lot.

It was sparsely populated, as expected, but the source of the noise came from near a streetlamp. Three figures, two men and a woman. They were badgering her: as he watched, one of them reached for her and she was forced back up against the nearest car, hands crammed nervously under her arms. She was smaller than them by far, face obscured by the ink-black shadows cast by the streetlamp.

Prowl frowned deeply and got off his bike; they didn't notice the noise of his engine, too busy goading her about something. He could sense the erratic, violent energy of the men from across the parking lot, only exacerbated by drink and their own bloated hormones. His stomach tightened in disgust as he walked towards them, eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

"Excuse me." They turned around, faceless with the yellow light behind them. Prowl took his riding helmet off, tucking it under his arm. He could always use it for a projectile if they got rowdy. "Is there a problem here?"

"There will be f'you don't beat it," one of them grunted after a moment, taking a genuinely threatening step toward him. "Get outta here."

They were obviously very, very drunk and the woman was painfully sober, gritting her teeth and arching away when one of them muscled her arms from her chest and grabbed her wrist. Prowl stepped forward.

"Sir—_excuse me_, _sir_."

"I thought you guys'd left this area for dead." Prowl could feel the other man's eyes on him, bloodshot and appraising. "Whaddya doin' up this late, son?"

He didn't want to think up a response to that—it was true the DPD didn't patrol much in this area--but in that moment his narrowed eyes actually saw past the _situation_ and registered the person trapped between the thugs, a-symmetrical dark bob and all. It was the woman from the strip club. Torque. His eyes widened.

"Step away from her. Now," he ordered through his teeth. They chuckled, husky and low and ugly. "She looks frightened and while I don't care to intrude on your fun, there are clear laws against harassment. Step away and this will go no farther—on your end and mine."

Prowl had no idea how long this had been going on—he knew drunk men, perhaps due to their limited faculties, could be unusually patient and torture their victims to rival a cat with a mouse—but it was obviously too much for the woman. She snapped the moment they rallied their fried brain-cells for a response, trying to free herself from the sweaty grip. The man holding her snarled and moved to contain her, and she, of all things, struck him as hard as she could.

It was a clean hit, strong and precise and in the gut, but she shrieked and threw up her hands in terror when he recovered and the two man crashed toward her, raging; Prowl's skin went cold.

It proceeded in slow motion. He could have called their attention to him and his badge, perhaps pulled his pistol and quieted them down—but they were so absorbed in her offense that it would be nothing more than officious white noise past their blood-swollen ears and they would hit her and Prowl _knew_ her—she was a kind soul and laughed at fumbling stories. He needed to physically _get them away_, so the young officer did the only thing that promised a result: he plunged in.

Prowl realized too late that he was engaging them. Picking a fight. He flung his helmet to the side and rushed forward, jaw set, throat tight. All the times in the gym, all the times with his sensei, he realized it was never like this: that all the pads in the world didn't substitute the terrifying feeling of rushing an enemy that wouldn't stop when he fell to the mat.

Some higher power, that of muscle and six-year reflexes, took over for him. He struck the first man and pushed him away from her, then twisted the second's hands from her thin wrists and threw his behemoth weight to the hard concrete. Every move stemmed cleanly from his bright nerves and his tight, trained muscles, silky but savage as he beat the two back and _contained them_ even after the woman was safe on the periphery. He evaded messy punches, darting between them--then fell from grace in one breathless slip. It was nothing more than a jerk of his booted foot on the concrete, a hiccup in his immaculate rhythm, and one of them punched him in the gut, caught him by the shoulders and neck and rammed his head against the hood of the car.

The only thing he heard in the booming impact was a plasticky snap against the bridge of his nose and two very separate clatters: his glasses.

Prowl's vision doubled, ears ringing, mouth stretched open in shock. He couldn't breathe, for all the pain. The man dragged his head back up for another slam that would surely extinguish his throbbing consciousness from his eggshell skull, but the grip loosened and noises came from behind him. She—the woman, Torque--had picked up something and was beating the man over the head with it, screaming at him. With the meaty hand on his jacket reduced to a few gripping fingers as the drunkard struggled to slap her away, Prowl ripped himself free and grappled with his belt, finally freeing his pistol with a muffled curse.

Leaning heavily against the side of the car, the officer braced his legs unnaturally far apart and leveled the black gun at the standing man, glaring hard. The click of the disarmed safety, smaller than any shout of authority yet more effective than a blow, made the offender step away from the woman and raise his hands, pasty face blanking in the dirty light. The other lay on the floor, looking blearily up at the officer, then scrambled to his feet, shadows foretelling his two black eyes.

"Back. _Now_."

It was nothing more than a haggard croak, but it got them going.

They ran. Only natural; only suspected. Prowl knew he couldn't _subdue_ both of them or pursue them, but his instinct kicked in anyways. He couldn't let scum like that get away: he chased them the first few steps but his legs turned to the jelly that dripped from his ears, leaving heady, oily trails of utter dizziness down his hot cheeks. He thumped to his knees in the dark parking lot and pressed one hand to his broken head, groaning. Footsteps come up behind him and then a warm shadow gathered to the right of him, a strong but tiny arm draping over his hunched back.

He looked to the side, dazed. It was Torque. Her makeup was smeared and she was looking at him in anguish—was that her hand on his cheek? It came back red. He stared at her, watching her mouth move. When he spoke, he was so rattled it was the last thing _he_ expected.

"I thought you said," Prowl murmured thickly, squinting, "you p-practiced—tae kwon do—"

"For _exercise_! I've never actually _hit_ anyone before!" she gasped, as though his halting words jump-started her anxiety for him. Her hands patted elsewhere, checking for broken bones. "Oh my god. Oh my--I am s-so sorry."

She, after a bracing murmur, helped him to his feet, then supported his weight with her arm. She apologized again and again, asking how he was—even when she was the one who had just been assaulted and it was his duty to protect her. Having trouble finding his feet, Prowl fought not to vomit at the sudden plane-rearrangement.

"Let me buy you a drink," she pleaded helplessly, cool hand once more cupping his cheek. Wiping away the fluid that prickled the skin there.

"No, thank you. I… have to—"

Prowl meant to say 'Get back on the road', but suddenly realized that he had _stopped speaking_ and he couldn't imagine keeping balance on his bike. Feeling a little lightheaded. Heavy-bodied. Broken, like the plates of his skull were grating against each other with a chalky, raw scrape.

His glasses. His glasses were around here somewhere, lying in pieces. Prowl shook his head to clear it and then moaned at the burst of pain, eyes clenching shut.

"No. _Please_," she protested--then, quieter: "You're bleeding."

He touched his head.

"I have never actually—hit anyone, myself," he said blankly, after a moment of looking at the brilliant blood on his fingers. He looked up at her, stunned. "Like that, I mean."

She smiled, small and tremulous.

"Theory isn't practice. I know," she whispered back, brushing a snarl of thin black hair from his white face. "You did magnificently, regardless. Thank you."

* * *

He was too hurt to protest much else. She led him into the bar step by step and, once she had seated his boneless weight at a booth, strode to the barkeeper (they looked a little too long at his uniform and the blood and his pistol, messily reseated in its holster), asking quietly and tensely for a bar towel and some ice. She slung it up with skill, bringing back a beer in one hand and the makeshift icepack in the other. Before he could protest, she straightened him, one hand behind his sweaty neck, and settled the ice onto the blood-rimmed welt on his head. She held it until she was sure it was numb, then molded his own hand around it to hold.

They sat for a long, long time, until Prowl recovered his senses from the dark of his skull. It involved a lot of squinting against the light and trying to settle himself in the hard booth, but he finally broke the silence.

"Did you know those men?"

She blinked at him, then frowned.

"In the most superficial of senses," she muttered at the table, tracing condensation from her beer. "They recognized me from the club. Wanted to know why I wasn't in my undies twenty-four-seven."

Prowl made a deep, solemn noise; it was as if the blow to his head had rattled more than his skull, for his usually blank face was twisted with pain-laced discomfort—not at his injury, but for her. Torque seemed comfortable enough in her job and with her body, but to have it dragged outside the confines of the club and shoved in her face must have been particularly painful. Especially by idiots willing to threaten her. Perhaps they had intended more--despite the aches, Prowl was particularly grateful he had been on that particular street to hear them.

He hadn't felt this… helpful in quite a long while.

"I was about due for something like that. It's been long enough," she sighed at length, then pinned him with a deadpan (if well-adjusted) look, full, dark lips pursed. "The one thing you can count on in life is the persistence and self-entitlement of misogynistic imbeciles. That and taxes."

Prowl responded with something that was hardly a nod—more like a ginger tip of his chin—but it was enough for her. She took a sip of her drink and turned to watch the football game raging on the TV. Looking at her, no one would ever suspect her techno-flavored nighttime activities: she had a men's sports jacket draped over the booth and another turtleneck over slacks, all modest. Half of him wanted to know how long she had been… doing what she did. The other half of him was bleeding out of his throbbing skull. A quick shift and check of the orange-brown-blotched towel affirmed it.

The dazed officer was just considering the option of a concussion when a tinny little tune blared from Torque's pocket, making her jump. Flashing him an apologetic smile, she dug out her phone and looked at the caller ID—then rolled her eyes and grimaced, the first truly unhappy emotion he'd ever seen on her. Whoever it was, it didn't seem to be a problem: she put it on the table and the ringing stopped almost immediately. She laced her fingers and sighed, then started chuckling to herself.

"May I ask?" he ventured, grateful for anything that would make her talk more: not only because he surprisingly wanted to know more about her but it meant he didn't have to formulate responses from his aching head.

"Oh," she moaned, realizing he meant the phone. "It's…I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing, but… he's just so clingy."

"Boyfriend?"

"Dear God, no," she huffed, tucking her dark hair behind her ear and resting her cheek on one hand, spinning her magenta cell-phone around on the table. "This… boy I found, he's… lord, he's just so strange. He met me at the club: his friends dragged him there and slipped me a fifty to have a conversation with him, panties and all… probably just to see him pass out, you know. Messing around with him. He stayed conscious, nose bleeding down to his knees, but now he calls me every so often and hangs up after two rings."

Prowl smiled slightly, baffled by the myriad of expressions she possessed.

"Shy."

"Terminally shy and a jittery nutcase beyond that. Afraid of his own shadow. I don't even have the heart to block his calls. It might break him in two." She shook her head, murmuring fondly, "Skywarp, honey, you need help…"

"You do not like him?" Prowl asked after a moment, studying her heart-shaped face. She hesitated, biting her lip.

"I don't… like men right now. It sounds stupid but it's true," she said in a strangely squeezed voice, not looking at him. Prowl thought about it, and it was a little strange to say--then again, with interactions like that, Prowl couldn't even begin to blame her. The mere musky scent of a man—the careless, blind scrape of calluses, coupled with hot breath--must send repulsed shudders through her. But he couldn't imagine her being functionally celibate, so that left…

"Listen to me, I'm _horrible_," Torque groaned, pressing her face into her hands for a moment before peeping out, all brown eyes and apologies. "I get you punched out, drag you in here and blab about my shy stalkers. Let's hear a little about you, please?"

"I'm afraid whatever's left to say about me is minimal compared to what I left on the sidewalk outside," Prowl said blearily, checking his compress again. She winced and pressed it back to his head, tsking.

"I'm so sorry about all of this, Prowl. I wanted to talk with you again, but these are hardly the circumstances I'd envisioned. Lockdown never brings people to meet me, so you're something special."

Perhaps she saw him stiffen at the name, or realized once again their common link and the strangest thing of all: how the two polar opposites managed to meet and reach a point to where they were riding in the same car; associating with one another. Prowl hardly knew it himself: even as he walked through the mess, it wasn't real to him. She gave a funny little smile, regarding him with sparkling interest from the top of her beer.

"That's right," she said, sunny again. "I've got you on your own, now, haven't I?"

"Pardon?" he murmured, feeling his bruised stomach drop.

"I wanted to ask you, really: how did you meet Lockdown?"

Prowl frowned so deeply it hurt: it was the last thing he wanted to talk about at this particular time. She mistook his mental discomfort for his physical pain and simply kept looking at him, pretty brown eyes wide, and waited.

"I told you," he said at length, staring sullenly down at the table. "A series of misfortunes."

"No, I'm quite serious." Her expression proved it. Prowl regarded her warily as she continued, "No one meets him if he doesn't want it—or if they don't sincerely need it, I think. Otherwise, he doesn't waste his time. He attracts… some very interesting people. Please tell me?"

So, after a slow, pensive sip of water, he put his compress down and actually told her.

The ache in his head was no longer an issue: finding the words to tactfully, logically detail a messy chain of events that was neither tactful nor logical, however, was. Prowl became more embarrassed the further he went, voice dropping to a reluctant mutter. He almost felt as though he should tone down the stalkerish-ness of Lockdown for his old friend's sake, or for an excuse as to why he didn't report the man again and again and again, but he shouldn't have bothered. Torque knew him well enough, hideous determination and alternate methods included. She knew him too well, even, and had a solid grasp of the term 'socially acceptable' despite her personal bias. Within a few minutes of halting explanation, her head was in her hands; she emitted a groan every so often at Lockdown's more 'exotic' schemes to secure a… date… from him.

He left out everything about the racing circuit—for his comfort or Torque's, he did not know, but it made the words come easier. Besides that, it was a little satisfying to see the older woman so distraught. When he ended his story, she nearly howled into her cupped hands.

"Dear God, that man needs some sort of social network. A dating site for hermits. His methods are… inexcusable." She rubbed at her temples, looking genuinely tired yet not without a beaten undertone of amusement. "I am so sorry, Prowl. I know he can be very, very… off-putting, especially if you don't know what he's about."

"And what is he about?"

Finally, the question he had wanted to know the answer to for weeks, months—what in the world _drove_ this man? Dumb, clever, erratic, punctual, horribly blunt and yet cryptic… and she had an answer to it all. An answer he should have suspected from the first.

"Enjoying himself, and only _delicately_ at the cost of others. Pity for you he gets his kicks from torturing straight-laced police officers, but you can bet he only does it for the look on your face."

"I suppose I… hook more than others." Prowl admitted somewhat miserably, retracing his _reactions_ to the man's hooligan advances. This woman was a force of perspective: she was his sounding board for the most incomprehensible things he had been experiencing over the past two months. Now he saw it… if he had simply acted indifferent, or perhaps gone straight to an authority, he could see clearly that Lockdown probably would have left him alone in a bare week. Torque nodded appreciatively.

"Now you've got it," she chuckled. "He aggravates the hell out of you, but he'd never hurt anyone. Not seriously. Just enough to… you know. Rattle your cage. I think cage-rattling is his favorite hobby, actually."

Alongside racing illegally at night, the unwanted, un-bruised portion of Prowl's mind volunteered nastily. The officer squinted and eyed the compact wistfully, wishing it had numbed his conscience as well.

"Still, if you need help, I'm certain he'll be first in line to offer it," Torque continued. "Real help—'practical needs' help. Like… a hand in jumpstarting your car or a place to stay. He's a real man. Still, if you're as straight-laced as you seem to be, I'd tell you to be careful around him. He likes you."

"I am… aware," Prowl murmured reluctantly, fingers twining nervously around his glass of water. It sat beside his glass of beer, which he hadn't so much as touched.

"Be on your toes, then," she warned him with a wry smile. "His intentions aren't pure, that's for certain."

Prowl was unable to stop the riotous rush of hot blood to his face: it cooked what was left of his brain in a single sizzle. He cleared his throat against the horrible buzzing in his ears, looking down at the condensation trails on the freshly buffed wood like a three year old. She froze, studying him.

"Oh no. He's already slept with you," she deadpanned. When Prowl looked up and opened his mouth, expression beyond stung, she waved her hands with a start. "_No, no, no_, darling, I'm—I'm sorry. _God_, that came out wrong. That's not a comment on you—just, um, him. He's--I don't think a nun could find an excuse he'd be satisfied with."

It didn't matter what she was saying. He'd done it. He'd given in, stooped, surrendered to that man. Wasn't clean anymore. Wasn't…

"It was a mistake," Prowl whispered thickly after a long, long pause, blood-filled ears blocking out the clink of glasses and the far-away roar of the televised football game. "A very… very serious…"

His hands tightened compulsively on his water glass and he felt tears, of all damnable things, prick at his eyes. The stress and shame and anger had consumed him whole, white bones and all, since that one night and he had been too shocked to truly emote: now, in front of another person, his trauma pressed at his red mouth and redder eyes, only inflamed by the terror of beating the two men off of her. The emotional pain crushed into him through his throbbing skull, denting his cherished porcelain ribcage, pressing in on his sick gut. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was wrong. Perverted, indecent. He was wrong. He wasn't like this, wouldn't _do_ this. His parents--

He sniffed sharply, hating the warmth behind his eyes and the tightness of his throat; _hating_ himself. Prowl didn't trust himself to do anything, much less finish a sentence; heart shuddering, he rode out the subterranean shocks of his canned-up emotions with his eyes pinned blankly on the black window to the left of them.

"Oh _Christ_ honey, don't be ashamed!" Torque exclaimed in a hushed, wounded whisper, reaching for his hands and running her warm fingers over his. He jerked, not knowing whether it was toward her or away from her. She held them over the glass, tightly. "You just--you know what, let's stop talking about this. I'm sorry I asked."

Neither one spoke; someone scored a goal in the background. Prowl sniffed several times, finally cursing vehemently and grabbing at a napkin to scrape at his wet nose. Torque watched him closely, dark mouth puckered.

"Why don't we, you know, swap numbers?" she suggested after a moment.

"What?" he croaked, staring at the strange woman—_stripper_—he had met only once before. "Why?"

"For… well. To talk. Later, if you need it." She waited with a hopeful look; he did nothing more than half-glare at her uncomprehendingly, muscling himself under control. Finally, she sighed and murmured, "It's just… You look like you have something on your mind."

The phrase—lobbed across warm bedroom air but a day previous—made his teeth snap together, disgust and fear boiling in his gut as he looked away and snapped:

"Yes: it's called a hematoma."

That small, pointless abuse took a while to circulate out of his hatefully clenched insides. When he looked back at her and found her face quiet and sad, the rest of him soured into guilt and regret.

"I'm—I apologize," he said heavily, closing his eyes in any bid for invisibility. He put his hands over his face. "I am under… stress."

"Don't worry about it. You damn well should be, after everything that's happened to you," she said softly, and let it sit for a while. Rather, let him sit for a while, calming down until his insides were nothing but watery shades of grey and his mouth wasn't so dry. Then she stroked the back of his hand with her soft fingertips. "You know, it's okay to be a little confused, honey."

It was simple, so simple: something he should have known, yet had not allowed himself in the slightest. It spoke to him as no assurances of brittle inner strength had and would, with time, let him stop thinking of the knot in his consciousness as a bleeding evil force but as what it was: something to be unraveled with time, time where he was a little bit ignorant and should be allowed that weakness until he learned what it was he needed to learn.

Slowly, Prowl looked up at her, looking every inch the lost, agonized twenty-three year old that he was—he could feel his eyes burning with bitten-back tears and he hated it--but her face was empty of all judgment. She smiled at him. He let her take his hand in hers and squeeze.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"No. Thank you for rescuing me, Prowl. And for… heh, letting me buy you a drink."

Prowl's lips twitched somewhat despondently: his beer sat to the side, not a drop touched. It embarrassed him a little, for the five dollars down the drain, but the gesture was more for her than for him.

"I'm simply glad I caught you," he said humbly. She smiled and grabbed up her keys with a jingle, hefting the bloodstained compress in the other hand.

"It's late. Walk me to my car?"

On the way out, she asked him if he needed a ride back, saying she didn't personally trust him driving home in that state, but he was a big boy. Seven minutes later she was climbing into her car—the one he'd had his head slammed against, actually. He hoped he hadn't made a dent, now that it was clear he didn't precisely have a concussion. She made to shut her door, but poked her head out to smile at him, dazzling in the dark.

"Call him if you need help, darling. He'll give it," she said sweetly. "He's nice like that, and you'll really never find a more dependable man."

Her door shut and she drove off into the lightening grey-blue streets with the hum of a well-kept engine; Prowl watched her go with a puzzled, exhausted look on his face, then his eyes fell on the glittering fragments of his glasses, right where her car had been. He went and gathered what he could into his hand with a strange anxiety—one lens was completely shattered, frame ruined--then got back on his motorcycle, already thinking of how he was going to explain this one back at the station.

Maybe the blood smears on the inside of his new helmet would be enough.


	13. Small Concessons and Large Confessions

A/N: SO OKAY HI I'M BACK. Italy and Greece were a blast but MAN I'm glad to be home! I think I can return to my regular update schedule… right? Right? Hope so.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT. I don't know if this sounds egotistic, but I have something to ask of you: if you do fanstuff—fan-doodles, fan-drabbles, fan-interpretive-dancing, _anything_--of my fics? PLEASE GOD TELL ME. NAO. It just sends me into a freakin' flurry of joy and lovesqueals when people do that stuff, and I DON'T want to miss out on it! So if you do, please, email me, send me a carrier pigeon, do anything to let me know and I'll be sure to let YOU know how much I appreciate it :3 Thanks already to Black-Panda-Chan on DA who did some simply awesome stuff of Odd Couple, check it out! I heart it so hard!

And of course, that said, I worship at the feet of my Eno, who is my unofficial illustrator X3 Ooh, if only you knew what drawings you haven't seen…

Awwwww Bumblebee. You're growing up. In.... reeeeeeeaally small increments.

* * *

Small Concessions and Large Confessions

* * *

When it really came down to it, Lockdown wasn't a liar.

Three days gone, and Prowl's phone remained silent. No propositions, no jokes—_so far_. No assurance could keep him from watching the compact black contraption like a hawk, especially when he had so much time to do so. He was currently being given some time off of work for his head injury: apparently the blow had given him a certain variety of concussion, though mild, and he wasn't fit for service just yet. His coworkers respected the chance he had taken… at least enough to excuse his skipped patrol.

All was well enough in the world. The young officer never realized, however, how unfortunate it was to have a trained medical professional living with him until Ratchet came up behind him for the fourth time and shouted at him for letting his head list to the side while typing his reports. He meant well… but Prowl's nerves were stretched too tight to accommodate anyone shouting at him at the moment.

Being at home also gave him more time to think, which was either incredibly healthy or morbidly unhealthy. It ran him ragged, then left him to pick up the pieces of his self-inflicted _debacle_ as logically as he could, moving as though through grey water in that odd, echoing state of mental exhaustion that comes after intense bursts of emotion. His talk with Lockdown's friend had simultaneously confused him and put things in perspective, but he was finally able to look at what had occurred between him and the older man from a distance, for what it was: a singular, isolated event, even if it was a mistake. Lockdown promised that much and it would stay that way.

He wasn't… like that. It was a mistake. It had to be.

Prowl pursed his lips and carefully leaned back on the couch—with as much as Ratchet was going on about the head-injury, he was surprised he managed to drive home Monday night. National Geographic filled the screen with shifting grass and the liquid shoulders of a stalking lion. The noble wildebeast pawed and snuffed comfortably in the dirt, unaware--then Prowl's quiet afternoon was spoiled by Bumblebee, strutting up to him like a stray cat with his yellow beanie cap crammed low on his scraggly blond head.

"It's him! The curfew-ducker!"

Prowl couldn't help flinching as Bumblebee's obnoxious voice hit his head like a hammer, only worsening his headache. He scowled and turned his head to the side, mentally rolling his eyes—glasses or no, he had tact.

"Karate Kid didn't come home Saturday night, I hear!"

"Lower your voice," Prowl grit out as the teenager flopped on the couch beside him and snatched up the remote, changing the channel without bothering to ask. His trashy pre-set channels flipped by. A music video, a reality TV show, each louder than the next, then—there—a monster-truck rally boomed out of the speakers. Then Bumblebee leaned back on the couch and fixed him with those unfittingly pure blue eyes, grinning his proverbial head off.

"So? What happened?"

What had happened—the very question Prowl was still asking himself.

Oh, his Saturday night? Nothing much. He had actually been molested by a suspected _male_ criminal twice his age after walking into a two-month-old trap that he'd seen coming all along, but somehow Prowl knew that wouldn't roll off his tongue quite as cleanly as it did in his bruised brain. He cleared his throat, considering just getting up and going to his room mid-conversation—but then, Bumblebee would probably follow him. That eager glint in his eyes said he would. Prowl sighed thickly, snatching the remote back just to turn the teen's damn monster trucks down to a tolerable hiss.

Bumblebee, after all, hadn't dared approach him since the motorcycle debacle. This might be a chance to squeeze an apology out of him and cram a lesson into him. If he cared enough to do so, that was—it was not looking good. Apathy seemed to be a horrible side effect of overwhelming head pain.

Finally, after a few goading pokes from Bumblebee, Prowl was forced to speak.

"I went out. With a… lady-friend."

It was amazing, how awkward and forced a single sentence could be. Bumblebee grinned hesitantly.

"And?"

"And what?" Prowl asked waspishly.

"You get any?"

"_Bumblebee_."

The fierce flush up his cheeks would have, perhaps, been natural for prudish Prowl, but there was another force narrowed his eyes and crunched his hands into fists. The officer radiated a hurt tension that simply didn't spell 'it's none of your business, thank you kindly', and Bumblebee was well acquainted with that particular snarly Prowl emotion. The officer glared fiercely at the TV, arms crossed, not honoring his housemate with so much as a glance. _This_ conversation was _over_, guillotine-style. The teenager scrubbed at the back of his head, at a loss.

He wasn't used to seeing Prowl _upset_. Pissed, yes, enraged, yes, mildly annoyed and delicately vindictive, quite—but upset? Then Bee remembered how his cousin, in full 'Prime' mode after the motorcycle-_borrowing_ debacle, had harangued him about respecting others--especially Prowl and his unknown sexuality.

Things clicked. A little. If he squinted and gagged.

"It's… cool, y'know," he ventured after a long, awkward pause, frowning at the screen.

"What?"

"If you're… y'know."

Prowl peered at him, blandly collecting his 'y'knows' as little context-stripped puzzle pieces that refused to fit. Bumblebee squirmed, grimacing.

"If you're gay," he finally blurted. Prowl blinked. Then, after a long, appraising look at the other boy, he smiled so slightly it was almost invisible—or perhaps it was just a modified frown.

"Thank you," he said at length. Carefully.

"Oh my—_God_," Bumblebee gulped, blue eyes bugging underneath his thick unkempt brows. "That means you're gay."

Not knowing quite what he'd admitted by thanking the other for his hypothetical (but invariably loaded and premature) acceptance, Prowl sighed deeply and shook his head.

"I'm not certain what I am. I have never truly been… attracted to anyone before," he murmured faintly, looking down at the floor with a bewildered expression.

Bumblebee stared at the cop, mouth slightly agape. Regardless if the uptight, nature-loving ninja had just come out of the closet, he couldn't imagine that: being so… cut off from that side of people. He knew what he liked. He'd been chasing girls since forever.

Not that any of them had ever said yes before Sari, but still, he couldn't imagine a life where no one _appealed_ to him in the slightest—where his eyes didn't stick on nice long shapely legs and the cinch of the waist further up and he couldn't think about what came after. Connection, contact. Prowl's life, at least for the hormone-addled youth, seemed like a B-movie version of hell. Trapped inside his own head, everyone around him a neuter. Nothing to distract him from algebra.

They sat for a while, Prowl motionless, Bumblebee scuffing his tennis shoes over the concrete floor.

"M'sorry," Bumblebee said suddenly. He looked lamely to the side, plucking at his yellow hoodie when Prowl turned to look at him, fine (lightly plucked) brow arched high. He cleared his throat. "That I… y'know. Took your bike."

Prowl's smile actually turned into just that—a smile.

"Thank you."

"Thank Sari. She made me."

"Steal my motorcycle?" Prowl asked dubiously.

"Apologize," Bumblebee pouted.

The officer chuckled, shaking his sore head. It wasn't what he was expecting, but at least he didn't have to fight for it… and his head wound made it nigh-impossible to argue.

"You are lucky," he said. "You have someone."

"Oh, Sari?" Bumblebee scratched his head again, chest puffing out briefly—and nervously. "She's just. Y'know. A girl."

"You look happy when you are with her."

"Ugh, what is wrong with you?" Bumblebee demanded, voice thick with disgust. He flicked his hand. "You can be gay, whatever, but don't, like, drip your sappiness on me! Weirdo."

Obviously, that statement hedged too far into the assumption that Bumblebee had emotions. That would have been 'his bad'.

"Sari is a nice girl," Prowl corrected himself, smiling mildly.

Bumblebee snorted, then growled miserably:

"She says I should be more like you."

Prowl looked surprised, one brow resuming its quizzical arch. He could hardly imagine the spunky girl saying such a thing. He had had the most limited of contact with her.

"In what way?"

"Y'know. That cool and collected thing, I guess."

"Or perhaps just that 'respecting other people's property' thing," Prowl suggested dryly. Bumblebee shrugged, lower lip competing with his nose for 'maximum distance from the face'.

"Same difference."

"I think you are… doing fine. After all, she's with you for a reason."

It was rare praise coming from Prowl, who couldn't truly find a single thing in the teenager that he approved of. Sari, however, had opened up new dimensions for Bumblebee: he was certain that Bee would not have been this receptive to his… issue, no matter how unconfirmed, four months previous. She set expectations. Hopefully he would continue to live up to them. The young officer smiled somewhat wistfully, commenting, "Whatever the case, I would like to have that."

"Well. Whatever floats your boat. Hey, I mean," Bumblebee huffed, looking determinedly at the TV, "so long as you don't, like, y'know, start mackin' gay-way on _me_, I think we'll still be able to hang together."

"Believe me," Prowl said delicately, leaning back against the couch with a just-abasing-enough smirk. "I don't think that will be a problem."

Bumblebee shot him a grin that drooped within seconds, but the occasionally dense young man was saved from Prowl's potshot by a sudden explosion of song--pilfered from a TV show from the 1980's, something about robots in disguise—wailing from his pocket. He dug it out and answered it, kicking back on the couch.

"What's up? B—what? Blurr? … Yeah, that's… uh. Hey. Yeah. Blurr. _Blurr_. Slow down!"

Bee groaned, heaving himself up from the couch and plugging one pinky in his free ear, squinting up at the ceiling as incomprehensible gibberish spewed from the speaker. Seeming to remember Prowl at a glance, he turned back and half-saluted him—Prowl returned it with a nod--before he trudged out of the main room with his phone held away from his ear a little wretchedly, free hand scratching his head.

"Uh huh. Yeah. Yep."

"--andthenIwaslikenoIthoughtyoumighthavewantedtocomebutIdidn'tthinkaboutitjustthensoIwantedtocallyouandthenIcalledthewrongnumberand—"

"Would you talk slower? I can't freakin'—did you take your Ritalin today, man?"

"—gotpromotedtodayand_noIdon'tneedthatstuff_itmakesmefuzzyandIhatebeingfuzzyheyheyheydidyouhearaboutthenewCamaromodelthat'scomingoutthismon—"

Bumblebee walked out grumbling, leaving Prowl with a nebulous smile and an unknown quietness. It lasted the entire day, through even Ratchet's nagging, until he went to his phone and, frowning far longer than he should have, deleted every one of Lockdown's text messages. A singular end to a singular event.

The confusion would end here—by removing the things that so confused him.


	14. Exposed

A/N: Now presenting my love letter to Sentinel Prime.

* * *

Exposed

* * *

After a little less than a week, Prowl was back at work.

He could say 'finally', because there was very little do to at the Project besides sleep off his unending headaches, but he returned to paperwork piled high on his desk. His newest task, courtesy of his current Prime. They wanted Prowl, as a part of their super-secret team of drag-race detectives, to type up all of the hand-written reports of suspicious cars and enter it into the database until he was capable of running patrols again. It was plainly grunt work for an officer who had much to heal and even more to prove, but he wasn't particularly upset to be kept from the field a little longer--even if it meant fading into half-scorned obscurity again.

The station did not react to his return. There were no 'welcome backs', no backpats or understanding looks. He didn't expect any. He just worked and worked, somewhat glad of the chance to avoid _people_.

It was lunch break by the time he ferried the second load of fiddly yellow paper-slips from the main office. He stopped to shift his load and draw a cup of water from the water tank, deprived of the glasses that would have blocked the glazed look on his face. A figure moved in his periphery; he paid no mind, until--

"How you doin', pal?"

Suddenly, it was the dreaded water-tank moment: something Prowl sought to avoid every waking minute of his office life by lurking in his workspace. Equipped with perfectly trimmed blond hair, an _enormous_ chin, and grisly sideburns streaking beside his chiseled cheekbones, Sentinel Prime moved up alongside him and leaned on the wall, making no pretense at getting water.

As it was lunch break—Prowl worked through break, usually, with no desire to join the other officers for the meal and be forced to sit while they socialized—there was no one else around. No form of distraction meant he was trapped with the huge man, whose pink neck was nearly the size of his waist. Regardless of his mind-over-matter philosophy, there was something to be said for the uneasy feeling he had when facing that much dumb muscle encapsulated in one grinning, cologne-saturated man, especially when Sentinel claimed a rank so much higher than his own.

"Fine, thank you," Prowl said primly after a moment, taking a swallow from his cup before shifting the two boxes of papers under his arm, staggering slightly as they slipped; he nearly slopped water on the floor trying to save it. Sentinel's grin, amiably predatory, widened.

"Big load. Need some help with that?" he asked smugly, offering his mammoth hands. "I know you're a little _limited_ right now."

"I injured my skull, not my spine. I am perfectly capable of balancing my affairs," Prowl snapped before he could think, then inwardly winced. He was, after all, on perennially thin ice in the DPD, especially with his current team Prime. It wasn't enough of an affront that he had to apologize, however, so Prowl gave his superior a curt nod and continued to his workspace.

Sentinel didn't let him get more than a few feet away before he pursued, strolling along behind the younger man for a short, surprisingly wordless walk. When Prowl reached his desk, he put the boxes on it and pursed his lips and glared at the opposite wall, well aware of the expectant stillness of the man behind him. Conceited, stupid, power-mad frat-boy. Muscling his suddenly aching head under control, Prowl contorted his face into a vaguely polite expression, once more regretting the loss of his concealing glasses, and grit out, "Can I help you with something, Sentinel Prime—sir?"

"I just wanted to have a little chat with my legendary rapist-clobbering officer. See if anything else is going on." Prowl turned to see Sentinel lounging against the nearby wall. The man glanced up from 'casually' inspecting his wide, flat nails with a piercing expression. "Anything else going on, Prowl?"

"I am afraid I don't understand," Prowl said, eyeing the Prime in distaste. He made his way around his desk and got himself settled, pulling the boxes toward him and grabbing a handful of reports out. Sentinel took this as permission wander around the small workspace, one hand at his physically impossible chin.

"'Cause, you see, people are talking about you. You've been on the tips of everyone's tongues since Optimus recommended you to this team--not exactly for your star performances either," Sentinel mused, pointedly surveying the bland inspirational portraits he'd doubtlessly seen a thousand times before. "You're a busy guy. Getting beaten up in alleyways… skipping patrol… getting beaten up in alleyways… oh man, did I repeat myself there?"

"If I may respectfully ask you to make your point?" Prowl said icily, failing to do so much as look up from his current task, fingers machine-gunning on his keyboard. Car brand names, colors—who put 'chartreuse' as a color when green would do? "I have a busy schedule today. Back-logged work, as you know, and it is my lunch-break."

"I got it, I got it. I just--I dunno, I was just curious what you've been doing in your off-time. I mean, you do whatever you want with your on-time, so that leaves me to ask what there's, y'know, left to do with weekends."

Prowl's desk creaked. He looked up. The Prime was _on his desk_, regarding him with the most condescending expression he'd ever seen. The pain in his head doubled and he couldn't stop the slight curl of his lip.

Roundabout, hopelessly see-through conversations—piecemeal intimidations—like this made the young officer wonder how so vindictive and dumb a man could have made it so far up the chain. At least with Optimus, you knew he was intelligent and _mostly_ capable, if prone to maddening micro-managing. Comparatively, Prowl preferred his former Prime, but whatever the case, Sentinel wasn't going to end this game until he hooked and 'made his own bed' by inquiring as to his mistake.

Perhaps he should have been frightened already. Wary, at the least, knowing that the confusion he had suffered over the past two months had much, much more to it than simple personal troubles. He was in too much pain for either of those reactions, and Sentinel's bullying habits were too well-known to bother getting riled up over. Prowl blew a tense bit of air through his nose and _submitted_.

"Pardon?"

That _look_ on his tanned, angular face—like everything had already worked out and he was a handsome genius and Prowl, pretentious little anti-social Prowl, was none the wiser. Oh, it made the younger man boil. Sentinel rearranged his butt on his inferior's desk and took a deep, infuriating, story-telling breath.

"Well, I was driving down Boyd street the other day… the one with the high-class mechanics and specialty shops. Y'know, three of which have been cited for chop-shopping for the racing circuit's big-name players?"

Prowl stopped typing, then forced himself to start again. It was a neutral subject. It was a neutral subject, they were on the same team… both dedicated to exposing the circuit. Business talk in a business environment. Only natural—except Sentinel's attentive expression said otherwise as he slowed down to grind every word into Prowl's suddenly ringing ears.

"Saturday, I think it was… and you know what I saw?"

Saturday. This last Saturday.

"What," Prowl managed, a small seed of terror taking root in his roiling gut.

"I saw you in one of 'em. Had a big white guy next to you. Tattoos, shaved head—I think you know the one? You two looked pretty cozy, comparing tires or whatever it was." There was a pause, then Sentinel practically purred, "I like that new light-set on the back of your bike, by the way—did he help you pick it out? Real flashy."

Prowl couldn't breathe; his heart became nothing more than a quivering, tender lump of disbelief, then exploded into furious pulsations. His glasses, where were his ice-blue glasses, blocking his wide eyes from Sentinel's prying, greedy attention? He kept the riotous fear-response canned up inside his burning skin, but even an idiot could see by the twitch of his suddenly stiff shoulders that Sentinel's meandering explanation had struck bone in some way. Prowl swallowed and found something blank and noncommittal to fill the predatory void.

"Thank you. I had been looking for that modification for quite a while."

It—this charade--meant nothing. He was a pretentious jackass and a former army drill instructor who took his fun from making others think he had all the power. Sentinel was scaring him back into line after his recent mistakes, trying to make him behave—to make him think that he _had_ something hanging over his head, but he didn't. There was nothing to deduct from two random people in a parts shop, nothing at all. Unless he… saw that damned ugly car, knew that it was on the list of suspicious vehicles—

But there were thousands of reports, most of which were on Prowl's own desk at the moment. Sentinel wouldn't put that much effort into anything, even intimidation. He didn't know anything. He couldn't.

"Glad you found it, then."

Prowl looked up at his superior as stonily as he could, forcing his breath to come slower and slower.

"May I—"

"But that guy. I didn't think that seemed like your regular hang-crowd—'scuze me for making assumptions, but you, ah… you don't look like the tattoo-and-leather type. I was curious. So I talked to Optimus about it." The big man chuckled, knuckles against his mouth. "Good old Optimus."

Optimus. The sole other person in his life who _knew_.

Prowl's fingers crunched down hard on the keyboard. Sentinel's fond, smug silence for once incited exactly what he intended: anxiety turned the young officer's gut to stone, jacking up his pulse to a maddening, frenetic rate. Prowl cleared his throat.

"And?"

"Well, y'see, he's been _jumpy_ lately. 'Specially if I mention anything to do with _you_."

He slammed his hand down on the desk for 'punctuation' and Prowl jerked despite himself, instantly cursing himself for it. He blinked hurriedly, nerves screaming. He tried to get himself under control even as his eyes were exposed and he was naked and every damning emotion shot straight from his dry eyes into the air where the mammoth man _ate it_, becoming stronger by the moment like some jock vampire. Sentinel continued, precise plastic grin moldering into a suspicious frown.

"And when I mentioned off-hand that I'd seen you with that biker guy, he—you wouldn't believe it. Optimus went a little crazy. Started rambling, asking me what I'd seen, when I'd seen it, like you were, I dunno, doing something wrong! The guy was practically wringing his hands over you," he guffawed, then quieted too quickly. "Now, I didn't get all of it—he pleaded ignorant and took off for Magnus' office before I could pump him properly—but I heard some things, Prowl. You want to know what I heard?

"I can't… imagine what he could have to tell y--" Prowl said stiffly, interrupted by another slam on the table and Sentinel's face mere inches from his own, white block teeth shining in a sneer.

"I heard _enough_. And if I find out you're dabbling with a suspected criminal, you're gone. You hear me?" he whispered viciously. "I'll have you investigated and pulled from this team—no, this _station_--for improper conduct. You've had it coming for as long as you've had that badge, insubordinate little smear, and I'll be happy to be the one to give you the send-off you deserve."

Prowl's eyes were unbelievably wide, face bleached—molecular-level reactions he couldn't feel, much less stop. Sentinel never took his eyes off of him even as he dismounted the desk and clenched his ruddy fists briefly, pointing one ham-thick digit at the young officer's face.

"And Optimus. Your little buddy. If I find out he's protecting your sorry ninja ass? He's in for it too. I'll take this Ultra-level if you so much as poke your nose into an unregistered alleyway again or show up three minutes late for work. You hear me, officer?"

His voice refused to work. Turning his face toward the table, Prowl's throat undulated soundlessly for what seemed like a full minute before he managed to say it.

"Yes."

"Yes _what_?" Sentinel snarled; his hand might as well have descended on the desk again.

"Yes, sir."

He couldn't think of anything to say. There was nothing to deny—and by remaining quiet, he accepted it as true and the accusations were in his bloodstream. They would not leave. With officers filtering back into the room, bringing murmured activity and life to what had been an interrogation chamber moments before, the encounter was enough of a blow without Sentinel stopping before he rounded the corner, looking back with a disgusted expression.

"Now I wonder why you didn't give us the right date."

He left Prowl white and shaking at his desk, exposed down to his wide, wide eyes as he reached numbly for another yellow slip and slowly, very slowly, began to type again.


	15. Bad Decisions

A/N: PSSSST. You should go check AFFnet right now, before you read this. Just for kicks and giggles. There's a present for you. But don't tell anyone I told you.

* * *

Bad Decisions

* * *

How did this happen?

_Optimus!_

_What—Prowl?_

_How… dare you._

How did he _let this_ happen? No, he knew what he was doing. Always knew. In control. He was never in any danger. So no, he hadn't let it happen, it had been forced on him by one idiotic man—

_Why did you tell him? Why?_

Optimus was blameless, some far-off part of his mind was screaming at him; the man now sputtering and searching for words in front of him was _blameless_ and should have gone to some measure of authority far earlier and he was lucky to have escaped undetected this long because what he was doing was _insane_ and against his very nature and Optimus only wanted to help him—but that part, that shred of logic, was drowned out in bile and the need to _react_ and point a finger and narrow the scope because otherwise there was too much to blame. Too much to think about.

He had to hate Optimus, because it was unbearable, what he himself had done. What he'd _kept doing_, even as he knew the risks and got deeper and deeper. It was complicated enough without Lockdown being a drag-racer, but his _job_?

His world. Meticulously structured, inflexible, guarded. Now, every single girder he'd erected to keep himself stable, to keep himself safe—gone. Inside, outside. So he clawed at the one who accidentally flipped the switch, even as he'd strapped himself into the chair all by himself.

Shame was so flammable, when applied to the correct irrational mindset.

_You had no right--_

_Prowl, stop—would you please just--_

Yelling, more words, yelling. Anything. The sound of everything crashing down around him found a way out: his mouth. Insults, accusations, all from fear, because his job, _his life_, was at stake. The only calling he'd ever identified with was being torn away from him by a dick like Sentinel, as enabled by the idiot Optimus, who should have just kept his mouth shut because there was _nothing wrong_.

_You know what? I'm glad he came to you, because this has to stop. I've given you every chance I could, but this is the end! It will look better if you go to Ultra Magnus yourself, but if you don't--_

The argument bled out of Prowl's mind after that threat. Already he was losing details: what was said, what it meant. He couldn't even think about the repercussions of it, nor showing up to work the next day. Only heat, loudness and an overwhelming sense of fury was left after the unreal clash, gnawing at him as he sat on the corner of the project steps and stared at the concrete drive and tried to _think._

He didn't have anyplace to stay. His rent would run out in a week and he hadn't prepaid the next months because of all the chaos in his life. He didn't have anyone to turn to. Wouldn't call his parents; couldn't call his parents, especially for this. His father had never approved of his profession. He would offer nothing. There was… no safe place left.

But he couldn't stay, that much he knew. Just like that night, when Lockdown was waiting in the driveway, he had to get out of the Project. Away from Optimus, who had brought this down on him. Staying was like admitting something, damning himself to the long train of mistakes lying in wait behind him, but he had no head for consequences right now: he didn't have the slightest idea what was bad or good, better or worse. He had to escape.

So he sat, and sat, and remembered what she said. _He_ would be the one to give help, if he… needed it. Slowly, very slowly, Prowl pulled out his phone, and half-wondered if the definition of 'rebellion' was the act of consciously pursuing counterintuitive courses that promised harmful results.

A woman's soft smile arose from his dark, injured mind, disturbingly crisp, assuring him that nothing bad could happen--or maybe he was just overestimating the relevancy of fact that such a kind woman had made it out intact after a lifetime of that man and _bad_ was a now a very, very relative term.

He stared at the screen, then the number. He dialed it.

It rang. Rang. His finger was stiff on the end-call button, the rest of him floating.

A beep.

"'Lo?"

His voice was thick with sleep, thicker yet with a stifled yawn. Prowl clutched the phone to his ear, heart pounding in his chest. The man repeated himself, phone clattering as he rearranged it. Probably sprawled across his couch, frowning at the ceiling. Cigar butt nearby. Prowl squeezed his eyes shut.

"Lockdown?"

It was the first time he had ever used the other's name aloud. He sounded unbearably small. Horribly unsure. Young.

The other end of the line went silent. Then, slowly, Lockdown started to chuckle.

"Whaddya need, kid?"


	16. Settling In

A/N: HOHOHO AND NOW THE FUN WILL NEVER END :D

This is like a grab-bag chapter. If this fic were in book-form, these would be tiny chapters, but you get them all at once because I'm weird about tiny chapters.

* * *

Settling in

* * *

"_Whaddya need, kid?"_

It was the most complicated question anyone had ever asked him, but Prowl settled for what he needed _right then_. Keeping a roof over his head. Lockdown had laughed again, paused an alarmingly long time, then said he would be right over and hung up.

Currently, the selfsame homeless cop sat on the infamous leather couch, which it was still a hell of a shock to wake up on even after three days. If that wasn't enough, his bones still shook with the force of his argument with Optimus: he dodged the other man at the station, acting as if their clash never happened. Perhaps he hoped that if he never provoked the other again or acted anything other than serene and lawful (even as he spent his off hours with the very man who had gotten him into this mess), his trespass would settle down into silence and nothing would ever come of it.

He just didn't seem the _type_ to do something so irrational—who wouldn't arch an eyebrow if Optimus accused him?

Plainly put, it had become a hiding game. Prowl would do anything possible to keep out of sight and _keep his job_. Sentinel came to 'check up on him' with aggravating frequency, meandering into his workspace like a bully with his pockets full of lunch money, always with the same hard grin; such incidences made Prowl desperate to reorder a pair of his frosted glasses, but as much of a comfort as they would be, he had more important things to worry about.

He tried to take things slowly: one threat at a time. Work hadn't exploded yet, so that enabled him to turn an eye towards his obvious situation at 'home'. Lockdown.

It was a chain of bad decisions, that he could readily admit. When he called the other man up, Prowl couldn't believe what he was doing, so he didn't waste time believing: he just _did it_, mind a blank slate. Anything to get away from Optimus. When Lockdown rolled into the driveway, the dragster smiled slightly at the sight of the young man crouched on the concrete steps with his orderly little life boxed all around him, looking like hell warmed over.

The man had left him alone at first, but his mere presence—and a few memories sitting very close to the surface—made the young officer increasingly nervous. Re-awakened to Lockdown's law-breaking habits by the clash with his superior and already in a hellishly skittish state of mind, Prowl watched carefully (if somewhat fearfully) to see where he went, but his housemate only left in the morning. Normal hours, if slightly spotty.

That morning, the house was lit only by sunbars. He looked over to see Lockdown at the kitchen counter, getting ready—for what?

"Where are you going?" he finally asked, sudden as anything. They were the first words he had spoken since 'moving in'. Lockdown glanced up for a second, then fastened his belt over his ripped-up jeans and finished off his orange juice with a big gulp.

"Work."

How foreign did that word sound, out of the tattooed ruffian's mouth? Prowl frowned, wondering what he _had_ expected.

"Where?"

"Warehouse down on Adams." He watched Prowl's reaction with genuine amusement, then thumbed his thrice-broken nose and flashed his gap, chuckling as he went out the door. "Whaddya think I do for a living, kid? Hustle?"

What--did he honestly think Lockdown made enough money to live, especially in space-spare Detroit with a house like his, just from racing? Of course he had a day-job. Everyone had a day-job!

He hadn't truly acknowledged the other man, much less thanked him for his last-minute kindness, but Prowl's demonization techniques couldn't hold up under the sedative rhythm of everyday life. As he began to pay attention to the daily routines, Prowl's view of the pervert who had stalked him at a Laundromat for five weeks began to shift on an hourly basis, increasingly incongruous: he was not a deceitful criminal crafting a façade out of ordinary elements, but a simple, blunt man with one very particular hobby. Eccentric, yes, but _sturdy_ and almost normal—a view that was only shattered by either reminders of his nighttime activities or the maddening sexual tension between them.

When their hours didn't put them face to face and Prowl was able to avoid meals by grabbing a salad at the cafeteria while researching new apartments that took tenants mid-season, it seemed fine to be living in the other's house but not living _with _him. That very day after work, however, once he was almost _settled_, Lockdown caught him at the narrow junction in the old house that lay between his bedroom and the bathroom. Crossing one another, the man's rough, warm hand snuck around his waist and one or two fingers poked below his pantline; Prowl recoiled as if bitten or slapped or burnt, or possibly just scared out of his mind.

"No. It will not be like that. This… this is not like that," Prowl said very sternly and idiotically once he had thrashed and shimmied out of range, hands out in some sort of makeshift barrier between him and the virile monster eyeing him. He paused, staring dumbly at the other, then finished defensively, "I pay rent. Would pay rent. You will stop thinking that way—right now."

Lockdown looked at him quizzically for a moment, then shrugged and moved onto the living room without a word, leaving Prowl with the prickling beginnings of a cold sweat.

That could have been the end of it.

Operative word: could.

* * *

By the end of his first week, Prowl was almost optimistic. It was Friday. Fridays meant weekends, which meant no time at the station—and it meant he had lasted this long.

Optimus wasn't around the corner. He could start looking for apartments in earnest and get out of this _situation_. It also meant forty-eight hours with Lockdown, which wouldn't have been such a problem if one of Lockdown's dirtier habits hadn't surfaced with the first breath of shared freedom of the weekend.

Prowl was sitting on the couch—his bed—and thumbing through a book when Lockdown, whiter than a snowdrift, entered his periphery. Not registering the reason for of all that skin, Prowl looked up, then froze as the other man walked across the living room, outrageously naked. _Completely nude_, down to his bearish thighs and beyond.

Stomach dropping, teeth clacking together, Prowl flipped his book up to cover his eyes, pure shock finishing the work his earlier concussion had started. His brain dribbled from his ears; words blurred on the page. Lockdown, unconcerned, padded into the kitchen, white butt the last thing to disappear.

After that, being in the house was like walking in a minefield. It was difficult to calculate the chances of finding Lockdown and clothing in the same place, but suffice to say it was in the lesser percentage: Prowl got very tired very quickly of coming out from a room to see the pervert walking by, naked as the day he was born, then instantly stubbing his toe and darting back inside, hissing and thrashing and trying very hard to keep quiet. He cursed himself silly at the gut reaction time and again, especially when Lockdown was so well known for provocative activities and according to Torque this was _just what he wanted_, but he couldn't help it: it just wasn't… _correct_.

Obviously, he was out of the house as much as possible that weekend. Sunday, however, Prowl was leashed into the living room by the Ethernet cord, searching for apartments with an _entirely_ new vigor. He had suffered Lockdown meandering through the house at least three times the past hour, but tried his best to ignore it. He wasn't goaded into speaking until the mammoth man stopped to lean against the wall and _check something on his cellphone_, tattoos popping out like drawings over his sculpted white-paper arms and chest and—was that a skull on his inner thigh?

"Is it necessary for you to be in the nude every waking moment?" Prowl snapped from the safety of his laptop, mood fouling even further as he was forced to increase his apartment price-range by one hundred dollars in the search-bar. It was getting _ridiculous_. All the students had rented the entire city's worth of apartments for the start of school in the fall and all the cheap ones were taken three times over…

Something beeped and Lockdown pushed himself away from the wall, stretching gratuitously and tossing over his shoulder:

"S'it necessary for you to be wrapped up to the neck all the time?"

"I _like_ clothes," Prowl ground out, teeth clenched. It was all he meant to say to that ridiculous prompt, but the words kept coming as he glued his eyes on his computer screen and his narrowing chances of escape, face heating up. "Clothes are very important to me: they cover all the parts of me I'm not comfortable showing to the outside world. They shelter. They warm. The pros of clothes far outweigh the cons of clothes. In fact, it's an accepted fact that society likes me better if I wear them."

"Thassa difference between you and me, ninjacop. I'm not bothered 'bout society," Lockdown chuckled, giving him a sidelong glance that he spurned completely. "'Sides. You're in my house and I outlaw clothes on weekends."

Prowl pressed his lips together, waiting until Lockdown went into the kitchen before allowing himself to sneer, but the ruffian wasn't _done._

"F'you don't get with the program, I might toss you out."

"_Just—put—some clothes on_," the officer finally burst out, unable to contain himself. Eight-plus tense hours of wordless nods and submissive silence at work did not pass without effect and he found his voice rocketing skywards, hands white on his laptop. "This is completely out of control, I don't care if it's a towel or a pair of-of boxers, or a lampshade, please _cover yourself_!"

Pause. Pause, pause, pause.

"Lemme guess."

The slosh and gurgle of some sort of liquid—probably thick orange juice or milk—being gulped down, straight from the jug.

"I make you _uncomfortable_."

The words stung just as much the second time around. Prowl's mouth closed with a short little chomp and he proceeded to steam and stew in his own cultured, politically correct juices as he finished off his report, actually snarling when Lockdown walked by and dug his hand into his glossy black hair, breaking it from the its strict comb-down and ponytail with an affectionate little yank. Prowl, practically spitting with rage, re-tied it three times before he was satisfied.

* * *

Another day, another not-weekend-nudist-episode.

Lockdown seemed incredibly pleased at the reaction he had eked out of his new housemate—that _had_ to be the reason, because no man spent so much time naked, in his own house or no, without an ulterior motive. It was unnatural, it was beastly, and it was having some very, very unwelcome effects on Prowl, not all of which were concerned with intense annoyance and disgust.

At first, he tried to look at it evenly. He was a cultured soul. Impartial as one surveying an abstract painting, he could appreciate the Greek vision of man as the ultimate paradigm of beauty… but that had nothing to do with it as there was nothing _graceful_ or beautiful or at all classically balanced about Lockdown's thick, wiry body, from the sandstone roughness of his skin and muscles and the waxy distortion of the scarring across his shoulder-blades, but still the officer's eyes lingered on the pale dent of his lower back. If caught off-guard, Prowl always followed the somewhat strange, masculine curvature of his strong granite spine that led seamlessly into his thick neck and finally to that black tattoo, tracing the alabaster path as though it were a worry stone.

Lockdown caught him gawking, more often than not, but the unfazed, _neutral_ return to whatever he was doing fueled a new kind of anger as Lockdown, ever-eager lecher, continued to ignore him and treat him as a neuter housemate without considering his issues in the slightest. The young man always made a point to sneer and look away, but Lockdown never paid attention, which only riled him further.

And he thought things couldn't get any worse? They could. The enemy was no longer an outside force to be repelled, waiting on the fringes to bait him. It had invaded.

Something had been… initiated, provoked, _unleashed_ with that one damnable night spent in the rickety house, and now Prowl added a lethal preoccupation to his growing list of spiraling anguishes. He couldn't stop thinking about… it. _That_. Anything to do with that, skin and tongue and muffled noises included, all provoked by the other man with the most innocuous of gestures or noises.

Prowl wasn't interested, he _couldn't_ be interested but he also had too much on his plate to waste time denying it as extensively as he should have. He grew infuriated every time his battered mind wandered there and he lost track of what he was doing. Disgust was always quick to follow and he threw himself into his painfully brainless work twofold, as though trying to raze his head or incredibly impressionable body of any further _indecencies_.

His housemate wasn't revolting: Prowl was at least that gracious. Lockdown, he had heard that some people (as featured by magazines) would think, could even be what was considered _sexy_. Not attractive, per se, or handsome in the slightest, but he exuded a gritty sexual pull that would compromise the standards of even the pickiest of women–and Prowl told himself it was not that but pure diplomacy, after a half-weeks worth of torture, that brought him to the kitchen counter on Thursday afternoon, where Lockdown was jotting something down on a notepad in nothing but his skin. Prowl stopped quite abruptly in front of the other man, simultaneously fighting to still the busy, nervous twitching of his hands and keep his eyes above waist-level.

Lockdown looked up at him, then back down at the notepad, finishing his sentence. Prowl waited. Lockdown capped the pen.

"Perhaps we… began on the wrong foot," Prowl began formally: reaching out a verbal hand to 'shake on it' with his normal off-key formality. Lockdown left his metaphorical hand hanging, offering nothing more than a blank, somewhat disinterested stare as he crossed his arms over his bare chest. Seconds went by and still he said nothing, and Prowl's proximity to the man's naked body was beginning to have certain… effects on him.

Memories rose in his blood, most concerned with the feel of the man's white, sweat-glazed shoulders tensing under his grasping hands as the headboard creaked viciously. The officer swatted them away with a choking noise as he cleared his throat, feeling a little hazy.

"I appreciate your kindness in letting me stay here. It was very gen—ah generous of you. To do that. I admit it. But, uh. I admit, also, that your advances are sudden and uncalled for, but this is an… arrangement. A certain kind of…thing. Between two men such as you and I."

Lockdown's stare was never-ending. He waited, uncharacteristically respectful, for uptight officer Prowl to have his say only for that selfsame officer to realize, with a stunned, faraway jolt, that he had walked into the conversation without the most rudimentary plan of attack. He swallowed and opened his mouth again.

"It's, as you are aware, an arrangement of equals, open to interpretation. I'm… more than certain we could reach some sort of… casual, noncommittal… kind of…"

It was a few moments before he realized he had trailed off, quite pathetically. Suddenly, Prowl felt as though he were pushing a large block to no effect—or inhaling laughing gas. Sun warmed the other man's broad shoulders, outlining every contour. Prowl's chest was getting tight.

The only outlet for the pressure, it seemed, was to snap like a depraved imbecile, lunge up and grab Lockdown's neck, mashing his mouth to the man's lips with a muffled, desperate noise.

There was a strange, lurching second of his teeth pushing painfully against soft fleshy bits: it was an ungainly assault of the oral fashion, not lethal but terribly uncomfortable and only intensified by utter panic and the fact Prowl simply _did not know_ how to kiss. Lockdown stepped in to make him lurch backwards and away from his bruised lips, then the strong hands cupped the young man's narrow back and Lockdown huffed a surprisingly disgruntled bit of air into his neck before crushing his naked front to Prowl's rough khakis.

"Well aren't you-- just a fuckin' ball of--mixed signals—" he slurred exasperatedly between hot, slithering kisses and Prowl, pressed so firmly against the wall that he had no need for his feet, heard no more.

Thirty very intense minutes later, Prowl lay heavily in the rumpled sheets, shaking like a drug addict. Which wasn't entirely inaccurate, he supposed in a nauseating mixture of self-hatred and shock. His mind was empty, world limited to the scrape of his bare skin against the sheets, but he could feel his control bleeding out, leaving him shivering and unprotected.

It was unreal. All of it. Did that mean he could wake up soon?

"What is wrong with me?" he whispered to himself, staring dully at the wall.

"You're a man," Lockdown grunted somewhere to his right, face presumably buried in pillows. "You didn't know it before. Thought I'd be the best one to tell you."

"Is it lethal?" Prowl asked faintly, feeling as though his bones had been rearranged with a hammer. A hammer named Lockdown, who had also left some horribly impressive bite-marks on his shoulders. He would find them in the shower.

"Eventually. Pretty good fun beforehand, though," the other chuckled, then rolled over and kissed the officer's salty neck once, rasping in his ear, "Don' worry, I'll help you through the worst of it."

"Generous soul."

Prowl was too tired even to snort or be disgusted, or to even remember that he wasn't supposed to be talking to this man this way. Like they had a rapport.

"That's me, kid. Angel of mercy," Lockdown cackled, then left.

Most of all, he wasn't supposed to be sleeping with him, even if he _wasn't_ a him.


	17. Slow and Steady Stockholm

A/N: Thanks to Christy, beta-girl fantastica, for the idea with Yoketron X3 Yeeeesh, writing that made me smile.

Sorry to everyone who wanted a little bit of expansion on the 'thirty minutes of glorious intensity', but no worries! Those of you above 18 will not be the least bit, uh, unsatisfied. Later on, I mean. Just check on Adultfanfiction(dot)net in the Anime: Transformers section (TO ALL OF YOU SILLY PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS PSHHHT how have you survived srsly) when I tell you, and you will smiiiile.

Yeppp. I have about 3 smuts saved up, but you're not getting any of them until the story tells me it's okay :D Ohdon'tmakethatface. I love you! You know it! … Don't you?

In any case, they'll make up for this chapter in one way or another :D

* * *

Slow and Steady Stockholm

* * *

"What came of my advice, Prowl?"

Prowl clenched his eyes shut for a moment, then sighed, wondering how many impossible questions could be asked of him in a one-week period. His sensei sat beside him on the grass of the hill outside the dojo, delicate hands arranged atop his knees, old face smooth and calm in the fresh sun. A willow creaked above them. Prowl searched for words.

"I… confronted what pained me," he said at last, unable to stop the anxious furrow of his brow. "And now I am living with it."

His master was not aware of the literal irony Prowl just dumped in his lap, nor his impetuous split-second relocation into his tormenter's house; he only nodded and smiled, kind, dark eyes opening to regard his student with fatherly pride.

"Good. Adaptation. Acceptance," Yoketron murmured, turning once more to the sun and settling himself comfortably in his cotton robes. His smile widened, the very image of a man in his happiest place. Nature and Nirvana. "How did you confront it?"

"I would rather not say."

"I respect your silence," his master allowed after a moment, catching little of Prowl's strained tone. "You must, however, revisit your lesson so that you may _keep_ what you learned. In facing these fears, what did you gain?

Humiliation. Anger. Shame. A hostage situation at work.

"Insight. Willpower. A clarity concerning what I must… change about myself, in order to continue," Prowl said slowly, heart sinking at the admission. Yoketron told him to come back when he was ready, but _this_ was not a side of himself he could accept. No, it was not a side but a vice and a mistake. He would either conquer it or abandon Yoketron's dojo. It was decided.

"Very good. And what did you lose?"

Prowl gulped audibly, thinking on the very night he had followed his master's advice and approached Lockdown in his home. Yoketron waited for him, face still upturned in serene meditation, then repeated in the exact same, maddeningly kind tone:

"What did you los—"

"My virginity, okay?!" Prowl burst out, voice cracking. "You made me lose my virginity!"

Yoketron turned and looked at him for a puzzled moment, regal white brows touching, then flashed him a thumbs-up and a sunny Buddy-Jesus grin.

There had been a two-dimensional nature to the scene before, but the cardboard feeling increased when Prowl stared at his master, frozen in that pose. Looking at that beaming old man, he became incredibly angry and mocked and ridiculous and rose to his feet, then moved to strike him. Yoketron clanged like a teakettle when kicked, falling to the ground with dislocated gravity--but then Prowl realized it was _him_ sprawled on his back with a stunned expression, indefinitely younger and nursing a black eye and an ugly, ruffled bowl-cut.

The perspective switched violently and Lockdown appeared in front of him with his hands on his belt. Prowl's face bleached. The devil grinned his evil incomplete grin and came down to pin him to the ground and tear his clothes off and desecrate the area of the sacred tree and Prowl woke up flinging his arms to the side, flailing himself right off of the miserable couch.

He hit the floor with a loud bang and smacked his head on the leg of the couch, three seconds awake and already curled into a ball of pain. He groaned, the throbbing of his head nothing but an introduction for the steady stomp of Lockdown's work boots, crossing the floor on the other side of the coffee table. The older man snorted at him, bundled up like a three-year-old after falling off a bunk-bed; Prowl refused to open his eyes, embarrassment doubling in his hot cheeks.

"Mornin' ninjacop. Bed's open."

And, with the snap of a door and a streak of sunlight in dusty air and another snap, he was off to work.

Lockdown offered every morning. It was routine by now, no longer capable of arousing the same indignation it once had. In the beginning, Prowl had quite a few things to say to the man concerning that touchy and offensive and presumptuous subject, but the offer became harder to see it as _impossible_ to accept when the doughy leather couch was injuring his back, possibly permanently. Night after night, Prowl switched from ice to fire, rotating from the lumpy couch to the cold hardwood floor and back; his well-trained spine and attention-span alike were crumpled and sore.

But he couldn't accept. That would be… admitting something, or capitulating in the worst way possible. No. He might have _woken up_ in the wide old bed once or twice that week, always with a nauseated start and a grasp for his clothing, but somehow not willingly starting out there didn't make it as much of a self-contained betrayal.

Prowl's life hinged on 'somehows', nowadays.

There were too many lines to toe—too many euphemisms and 180's to pull--to keep up his barricaded self-image. The only option was to balance his intense fits of denial. It was incredible that he could come home from work and ignore the fact he was living with a suspected criminal, but Lockdown had not made a single suspicious move.

He woke up, went to work, came back, had some sort of incredibly unbalanced meat-based meal, possibly watched TV and went to bed. Despite the mundane happenings, Prowl was well aware he could still be twisting this: using it as some kind of childish spy fantasy, keeping watch over the man in his home like an underground agent, but somehow even this had gone beyond his ability to fantasize.

For lack of better options, he told himself he would stick it out and simply see what happened—and he didn't have to wait long.

Prowl caught the chase as it happened: one evening, the mini radio function on his laptop was suddenly buzzing with a flurry of static-punctuated communications as all units were requested, and so on. It took several seconds of attentive squinting before he could make out enough words to realize what was going on in the other side of Detroit. Then Sentinel's voice rang out, loud and angry, ordering half of the units to pursue the camera 'bots and the other half to dog the actual racers, and Prowl's blood went cold. He bolted out of the cramped back porch where he'd taken refuge an hour ago, and ran towards the front door and the yard, where he would surely see an empty garage and maybe a mocking note—there _had_ to be a mocking note--but stopped dead at the living room.

There, lounging on the couch, was Lockdown. Sitting back. Beer in hand. Smirk on face.

"Want a drink?" he asked over the same wailing sirens that filtered out of Prowl's laptop. "Some pretty good stuff on the tube tonight."

"You're— "

His voice blanked out. Caught in the doorway as though he were caught in his own cuffs, Prowl could do no more than stare, uncomprehending of the reality of Lockdown on the couch, t-shirt and jeans dyed red and blue from the bright police-siren glow of the TV. Even as it was right in front of him, he couldn't see Lockdown not racing, not decked up to the neck in leather with a shitty grin on his face—_not_ _being_ the scoundrel that cuffed him to the pipe, the man he had to defeat and capture.

"What, are you happy or disappointed?"

Prowl couldn't say which. Was there even a word for what he was feeling?

There was _no room_ for cognition. Any new thought-trains kept slamming into the sides of his skull, viciously shortstopped by the immovable man on the couch. Eventually, he found a few words.

"You—you were _never_—"

"I don't lie, kid. F'you had taken me up on my offer, I would've made one last run for you. Glad you settled for dinner and a pair of lights," Lockdown said easily, taking a swig of his drink and turning his signature unconcerned grin on the younger man. "I've still got my suit, though, f'you wanna play a little handcuff tag later."

Prowl backed up and blacked the out sight by clenching his eyes shut, head hitting the side of the doorway with a hard sound, then ran back to the porch to track the pursuit.

It lasted thirty minutes. Fingers flying, he accessed several live cameras that he had skillfully hacked into during the months before, flipping between cars E203 and E091. The chase was inconclusive, as they always were, and so Prowl emerged from the porch utterly exhausted for two reasons.

First, he'd been duped.

No, not duped but _extorted_. He entered into this chase with a healthy amount of legal reservation, true. There was a chance Lockdown had been bluffing all along, but Prowl knew that wasn't the truth. The man was a drag racer. He just… retired. Within the span of time Prowl knew him.

_When_ the chase became a farce was still a question, but all along the man had teased him out into the open like a true sociopath and kept his interest--and his anger, brazenly simultaneous at that point--by offering him the one thing he couldn't resist: a chance to prove himself superior. Lockdown read him, _understood_ him and played him like the furious fool he was.

Second, technically but to all considered effects, the man was clean.

What was more, that was all that mattered. The DPD intelligence division didn't know much, but they did know that the circuit didn't communicate with anyone but their current players. Proven by the simple fact of his position on the couch while a race was raging on Elwood street, Lockdown was out. Ex-communicated. He was a dead end with no evidence of prior offenses, and no confession from an officer with a bad history of back alleyways would change that.

After the anger and the rage, mostly at the inability to _take Lockdown in_ and validate all of his suffering, left Prowl's battered mind, the second point proved the better of the two. It dissolved some of the tension between them, at least, now that Prowl didn't have to worry about turning the man in or question his own insanity in living with him. Now, Lockdown was just a deceitful pervert and not a threat to his job, which made Sentinel into nothing more than a bully once more. Prowl didn't sleep at all that night, too embroiled in cursing every bit of circumstance, misunderstanding, ego and deceit that had brought him to that goddamned couch.

The next night, however, he had the first sound sleep he'd had in weeks.

* * *

Next, Prowl gave up.

He had too much on his mind to self-generate such hostility in his own living-place, no matter how temporary. Somewhere along the line, he quietly submitted to Lockdown's wordless, no-pressure way of life without care for the finer persnickety politically-correct details, all possibly for the first time in his strictly regimented life.

Even as the young officer spent all afternoon searching for new apartments, the two men split up duties without a word: Prowl bought more than was his wont for groceries and Lockdown kept things relatively tidy if Prowl didn't beat him to it, most often armed with a scrubber and a fathomless frown. His obsessive cleaning escapades weren't any form of _favor_, he just hated things being dirty and found that taking it out on the inside of the scud-rimmed sink with a bottle of ajax did him more good than mulling over his current existence.

Accepting the state of his life was one thing; his pride was another. He could hardly admit to himself he was grateful to the ruffian for taking him in (because it was all organized, after all, to take advantage of his fragile emotional state and coax him into shameful activities), and so had a difficult time paying Lockdown back in subtle ways for his odd kindnesses. Nevertheless, he managed.

By some happy (or awkward and nauseating) accident that coincided with an early release from the station, Prowl broke out the dusty pans and pots hidden away in Lockdown's cramped kitchenette and had a very rudimentary spaghetti dinner ready when his housemate came home smelling like fresh sawdust and clean sweat. The situation spiraled with that signature Honey-I'm-home door creak, especially when the other man shook off enough of his tangible exhaustion to slide up behind Prowl and cup his butt with an appreciative eye to the warm food. Beyond stung, Prowl snatched his plate up, red-faced, and went to eat in the living room. Lockdown followed him at an easy stride after filling his plate, making for a very, very uncomfortable dinner, even with National Geographic in the background.

Inspired by something he could neither name nor explain, save for a certain inexplicable sense of safety, Prowl saved his career the next day.

* * *

Ultra Magnus' office, while not walled with glass like those of his underlings, was hardly soundproof: the murmurs inside stopped when Prowl knocked three times, short and sharp. His heart throbbed when the door clicked open, then stopped almost completely when Optimus' handsome face blanked at the sight of him.

The two men shared a shocked stare before the Prime stepped back and opened the door for his former housemate. Prowl strode into the office as steadily as he could, eyes toward the modest carpet; thinking not about his precious glasses for once, but about honesty.

Ultra Magnus sat behind his desk, husky middle-aged frame straightening from an uncharacteristic hunch at the young officer's entrance. The man was solid and every pound added to his intimidating nature, ornate badge gleaming against his habitual navy button-downs. He watched Prowl approach with sharp eyes, mouth already thin and appraising. The young man stopped in front of Magnus' wide desk and drew breath, almost feeling Optimus' abashed look behind him, and finally raised his head.

"I am sorry to see that I was not the first one here, Ultra Magnus."

"I have not been told anything yet, Prowl, though I hear you have much to explain," Magnus said briskly. He granted no more than a glance to Optimus, who walked into Prowl's periphery, before gesturing at the files on his desk—Prowl's own files, all muted olives and chiffons that summarized his entire professional existence. "Would you care to enlighten me, in your own words?"

It only took a moment to steady himself, as he forced his hands to uncurl from nervous fists—the product of hearing his superior's deep voice. He sliced all euphemisms; all squirming mitigating phrases. Trying to wiggle out of his punishment would earn him nothing. Scraping honesty was everything and, after so long, Prowl sincerely wanted to come clean.

He took a deep breath.

"I have committed several infractions against my station as an officer in these past two months. I… actively trailed a man under suspicion of being involved in the racing circuit, with intent to secure enough evidence to arrest him."

Why did it sound so ridiculous, in the stagnant freshener-scented air of that room? He was suddenly some farcical lone ranger, equipped only with suspenders and the lowest level of legal authority. Prowl felt Optimus tense next to him; Magnus' chair creaked as he rearranged himself, expression darkening.

"Trailed?"

"I…" Prowl trailed off, throat closing swiftly. It was difficult to find the words, until he realized what he had done. "I baited him. Intended to force a confession out of him by meeting in a social environment."

His superior's thick brows nearly touched his hairline as he swallowed that piece of information. He had never met Prowl before, on a personal basis, but he had heard he was a solid worker and the farthest thing from irrational, even if his name was never volunteered readily and all the other officers spoke of him with impatience or distaste.

"How did you encounter the suspect?"

"In a bar, sir."

"What convinced you of his involvement with the circuit?"

"He spoke of the circuit in detail, bragged about his previous winnings and was dressed in a suspicious manner."

The station leader frowned deeply, one hand at his graying temple.

"Common-place in a city where individuals pay thousands of dollars to tape and distribute media of the races. It doesn't sound like enough to drive you to something as rash as pursuing a suspect on your own and without warrant."

Prowl checked himself, letting that one unfathomable night on the streets slip out of his mind for the moment.

"Yes, sir. I realized this too late, sir."

"Why, then?"

"Instinct, sir. And… no small amount of ego."

Magnus made a brief noise—horribly neutral in the face of Prowl's raw admission. He nodded.

"How many times did you bait him?"

"Three, sir, always in public environments."

"Such an action is beyond both your rank and responsibility," Magnus said at length, kneading the bridge of his nose, tired mind dwelling on what the officer's upstart could have cost them. Very few were foolish enough to take the law into their own hands even as they dispensed it—was it the sudden upgrade to Sentinel's investigation team that prompted the escapade, as the file suggested?

"Yes, sir," Prowl said quietly, making a curt half-bow towards the older man. "I apologize for my actions. I acted out of my range of authority and jeopardized a possible lead, had the man truly been capable of being apprehended."

"You put yourself in danger," Optimus interjected from the side, somewhat more fiercely than he should have. Ultra Magnus gave his third Prime a hard, worn look; the younger man took a step back with a cowed frown, but Prowl simply nodded.

"I realize this as well," he said, not looking at his old Prime. His tremors, had they ever been visible, had quelled. He seemed almost serene, standing in front of that column of authority with his professional life spread out below Magnus' blocky hands and care-worn face, his own eyes bare.

He waited, hands loose at his sides, as gracious professional judgment was passed. Magnus frowned into his hand for a short time, then took a pen from a cup at the corner of his fastidious desk and began to scribble on Prowl's papers, flipping through a few with a disappointed frown.

"You have shown incredible irresponsibility, officer Prowl," he began sternly, signing his name three times and removing one sheet of paper. "Your actions are unacceptable, especially after being promoted so recently at Optimus' personal recommendation. This will go on-file, as will Sentinel's opinions on the matter."

"Yes, sir."

"Moreover, you are removed from the investigation squad as of today. You are to return to your regular patrols and duties tomorrow, stripped of the use of any of the privileges of Sentinel's team. Your pay will be curbed until I decide differently. Consider this a warning, officer Prowl. Clean out your cubicle and continue."

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

"Dismissed."

He took the paper his leader offered to him, gave another half-bow and walked out.

It felt somewhat otherworldly, looking at the discharge slip. Sentinel's exit from his life was welcome, but it seemed too little and simple a punishment for the all-consuming chaos he had suffered for those two months. It was even something of a… relief to be demoted: it felt nice to be condensed and simplified under the eyes of a superior, and an end put to it all. Confessing had its merits, although Prowl supposed he had been trained to appreciate that abusive ritual from walking age, with the help of the church.

It was almost peaceful, walking out of that room with his life still intact. He didn't care in the least about the removal of his prestige. He would have balked at it but three months ago, but that was then and this was now. Prowl stooped to grab an empty file box for his cubicle, then stopped when he heard the office door shut quickly behind him. His name was called.

Prowl frowned benignly at the wall as Optimus closed the last few steps behind him, somewhat gingerly. The man cleared his throat.

"That was a… good thing you did, in there," Optimus said softly.

His words were slow and careful. He didn't know if Prowl still held any poison for him for threatening to bring him in, or even if the younger man would accept what were commonly known as Third Prime's Platitudes when all Optimus meant—had ever meant, Prowl would realize in time—was well. When Prowl didn't turn around, the older officer tried again.

"It took a lot of guts, but it was the right thing. I'm glad you stepped up."

There were a lot of questions: Prowl could sense them, weighing his superior's tongue since his sudden disappearance from their tight-knit 'family', but kind, earnest Optimus just settled for the only thing he really cared about.

"Are you alright?"

The older man relaxed, finally, when Prowl turned around and nodded.

"For the first time in a long while, I believe so," he said faintly. He studied the growing leader in front of him for a long while with the beginnings of a bemused smile, then turned and walked to his old cubicle, empty box on his hip. Packing the first of his sticky-note pads away, he wondered if Lockdown had a stir-fry pan.


	18. Piece by Piece

A/N: P-P-P-PRESHUS. Gawwwwd I really didn't mean to make it this gooey.

Pee-ess, I made you naughty things. GO GET THEM. **Before** reading this chapter, if at all possible, because time-lines are good and we love them.

* * *

Piece By Piece

* * *

As per the rule of the universe, everything had to give sometime—Prowl's back, unfortunately, was one of these things.

He couldn't survive on the couch. One more night and he would break in two. The pain in his creaking spine was interfering with his day and his duties, and the moment he dismounted from his motorcycle after a late-night patrol and froze from the intense pain in his lower back, he gave up. He endured Lockdown's amused chuckle when he found the young officer in his old queen bed an hour before sunset, trying entirely too hard to pretend he was asleep--all so he wouldn't actually be forced to _climb into bed_ with the other man--but Prowl's capitulation of finally sleeping with the man had an entirely too expected downside.

Prowl had opened the flood-gates. He wasn't functionally celibate any longer, but had sporadic and violent failings of will that always ended with Lockdown flicking another condom into the trash, and this made sleeping with the man unbearable. Not engaging in physical relations, mind, but actually _sleeping_.

It was as though there were a cement wall down the middle of the bed that Prowl was trying to fashion from nothing but sweating, shaking willpower and aloofness. Lockdown crossed it on a regular basis, but only by the most innocent of rolls and warm nestlings that still caused Prowl to flinch and anticipate an assault in the dark. It was an hour, every night, before he actually managed to drift off in that mental minefield.

He wasn't attempting to disguise his neuroticisms in the least, and Lockdown let it go no more than three nights before he rolled himself over and propped himself on his elbow, talking over Prowl's dumb, habitual gasp.

"So, you want me t'go for you every night, straight off the bat."

There was a genuine tiredness in his voice as he scrubbed at his black-inked eyes, squinting at the young man in the dark even as Prowl had—always had, without fail—his back to him.

"You good for a grope 'round eleven? Just so you can officially turn your nose up and get all this twitchin' and gaspin' business outta the way. 'Cos it's really fuckin' annoying."

"There's… no need," Prowl grit out after a long, excruciating pause, face fairly burning up in the cold dark as he was forced to speak. He bundled the sheets over his shoulders, genuinely embarrassed at his behavior.

It was Lockdown's unique way, he supposed, of telling him to calm down—that he wasn't going to wake up in the middle of the night naked and pinned to the mattress. Though the (former) dragster was able to sleep through anything, he was getting fed up with the tension radiating from the young man: a hyperactive mistrust that he had truly done nothing to earn. The exchange wasn't a promise of complete bedroom respect, true, but at least it put most of Prowl's unknown fears to rest. He wasn't going to be attacked, and thus could catch up on the sleep and spine-healing he so dearly needed.

Those realizations came to him later. Now, Lockdown's chest slowed in their new truce dynamics and the silence was finally broken. Prowl lay flat for little more than a moment, staring hard up at the ceiling, then dug his hands into his loose hair and faced the man.

"What do you want from me?" he asked. His voice trembled slightly but he couldn't help it—not when he really didn't want to know the answer. "Don't make up excuses, just… what do you want?"

"Nothin'," Lockdown rumbled after a moment, then rolled over and propped a pillow under his head. "Least, nothin' you're gonna fight me over."

Prowl studied his scarred back, barely visible in the black bedroom, feeling somewhat lost in the reality of it all: chilly bedroom, navy sheets and another man breathing just feet from him after practically inviting Prowl into his life with no real cause. He didn't know quite how it had come to this, but he finally saw what was in front of him: a real man, no criminal caricature, no grinning rapist. He needed sleep and food just like every one else. He got tired like everyone else; got paid too little, like everyone else.

Feeling his mortality and flawed human nature and strange, inestimable grace in every skincell, Prowl closed his eyes.

"Why did you let me stay with you?"

"'Cos spaghetti's better than cold cuts and wonderbread." Lockdown shifted with an air of finality, as though telling Prowl to shut up and fuck off, then paused and muttered into the sheets, "And I been where you are more'n a few times."

"You said you came from Tennessee—how did you get here?"

"Hitch-hiked."

He shrugged in the dark and the movement didn't even make Prowl flinch. The young man twisted the sheets in his hands. His heart beat a little stronger, but not through any kind of fear. He wet his lips nervously.

"Why did you… is there any reason you—"

"Kid. I got work in the morning. Four am," Lockdown ground out, obviously at the end of his midnight tether. "If you wanna stay here, you'll settle when I do. I like sleep more'n I like you and that ain't due for change, so _shut up_."

Slightly cowed, Prowl complied, but didn't get to sleep for quite a while. Instead, he listened to Lockdown breathe beside him and just thought.

The next day, it was as though their unspoken game of cat and mouse had abruptly ended, or undergone a violent redefinition. Whereas before the mouse had delayed his sprint for safety until the last moment, for sake of simple energy conservation, suddenly the mouse sat down and started asking the cat questions. The cat didn't waste time being surprised.

First and most obvious were the pictures on Lockdown's skin. A few had stories, a few didn't—a few, he chuckled dirtily, were the direct result of getting drunk and having a tattooist friend, also heartily smashed. Between the two of them, there was no idea they couldn't fuck up, he said. They moved on, tattoo by tattoo: Prowl listened intently with an alienated expression on his (very sheltered) face, putting all energy possible into the first honest move to reach out to the man housing him. Finally, once they were fully entrenched on the awful leather couch and half of Lockdown's beer was gone, he asked.

"What about… your back?"

"Which one?" He shifted as if to look over his shoulder, then arched a black-ink brow. "Wait, y'mean the ugly shit?"

"Uh. Yes."

Half of the man's back was covered in white webbed flesh, almost pinker than his actual skin but immediately apparent for its unnerving glossiness. All of it was wrinkled slightly with broad bands of waxy scar-tissue. There was no tattoo there.

"That one. Hay-baler nearly killed me."

"A hay-baler?" Prowl squinted, trying to conjure an image of a farm machine he had never seen before. "How did you… fall in?"

"Didn't fall." Countering Prowl's surprised look with a dry smirk, he shook his head. "You try bein' the only albino freak in a field of rednecks. Dumb as they are, they find ways."

If the kid had known about haybalers, he would have deduced that such a wound could have only come from being held down on the belts by laughing bastards until the skin was ripped off of his back in scraps and wet strips. Prowl's epiphany was limited to the man himself: out of all the things to be bullied over, it was his skin color that made the top of the list, not the fact he was gay. Prowl almost bit his lip, going oddly quiet.

"So they didn't…"

"Know?" Lockdown drawled mockingly, putting two and two together from the basic look on the other man's face. He gave a scathing not-chuckle, pinning Prowl with narrowed red eyes. "Shit, kid, you can't even say it for _me_."

"They weren't aware of your sexuality," Prowl grit out, pricked.

"You know me. I'm the asshole breed of fag." He gave a shitty grin, gap adding to the image. He frowned, then, reaching up to scratch at his neck. "They sniffed it out, though. Fuckers would take any excuse. Gave it back to 'em no problem, but they sniffed it out. Fuck, not much else to do in Calhoun but sniff."

A long silence passed, both thinking about things they would rather not, then Prowl looked up, asking softly:

"How did you lose your hand?"

Lockdown looked down and popped the stub of the cigar into his mouth, giving the prosthetic a whirr.

"Factory accident."

And so it went.

Prowl came to know the man piece by piece, through his own questions, as nothing but a distant fascination or a study in his old enemy. One could not know another's story and not be touched by it, however, much less as fragmented and dusty a wandering as the man had taken before coming to that house. Prowl went through his work routines in something of a daze, even if it wasn't an altogether unpleasant state, and came home every night and cooked dinner for himself and his housemate. Step by step, day by day, the young man regained rhythm: he moved, ate and spoke with a cherished equilibrium, a _routine_ that finally let the hair on his skin lay flat, even through upsets.

He became exasperated when Lockdown threw a fatty bleeding hunk of meat down on the unsanitized counter-top and ordered him to cook something other than vegetables for once; he felt a surge of fear and nausea when he was kissed, even if his hands instinctively grabbed at buttons and wrapped around Lockdown's warm thick neck, and the fear always came back when he was naked atop the sheets, swollen heart slowing beat by beat; he snapped when Lockdown squeezed his behind without warning and reliably left the room in a huff when the other man wandered out naked for the fifteenth time that day. He knew all of these bumps and claimed them without pause—and yet he spared no thought as to why he was growing slowly, strangely content.

Logic, it appeared, had a smaller role in peace than he had ever suspected.


	19. Sport

A/N: There'll be little flashbacks like this. I considered putting them in Odd Moments, but were this a book, I'd put em in the book. They're pretty essential to understanding why Prowl and LD are the way they are.

Also, please review guys :[ Please. I know it's summer, but srsly. If I get little to no response, I'll once again assume no one's interested.

* * *

Sport

* * *

He wasn't supposed to be there.

He was never supposed to be there, but Bluestreak hadn't stopped talking until he agreed to accompany him. Blue needed a cover, because the only-slightly-bearable freshman wasn't supposed to be there either. No one was, really, especially not with the amount of alcohol and hook-up sex involved in such a pious group of young adults, all rotting beneath the skin from their own mindless indulgences.

Prowl sat in whatever corner he could claim from the lounging pot-heads, having lost track of Bluestreak at least half an hour ago. People milled around him, either ignoring him or looking at him with no small amount of haughty incredulity—wondering how in hell the weird Asian kid was invited. He hated 'parties'. Hated the people that hosted them. The throbbing, ceaseless noise, the hypocrisy, all congealing in a roiling mass of group-thinking and stupidity; he knew most of the students of St. Benedict's did not attend the establishment by choice but rather at their parent's demands, but that didn't stop the disgust he felt when they kneeled in church then acted like animals the instant they were in an unattended house with a large liquor cabinet, guffawing boys pulling girls into bedrooms two at a time with four more guest rooms waiting with already rumpled sheets.

He wasn't expecting saints. He expected human beings, and even then he was grievously disappointed by their stupidity. No, this was not his environment: it was his seventh circle. Prowl _knew_ he should have left twenty minutes ago, even before the girl with the green strapless top tip-toed up to him and fell onto his lap without a word of warning, grinning in his face.

He locked up; the uneven impact of her weight told him she was tipsy, even if her eyes were still clear. He reached out, put a hand against her shoulder. She only leaned closer, inhaling deeply.

"Ex—excuse me—"

"You look lonely," she cooed, nosing at his face.

"I am not," he grit out, both spooked and revolted by her proximity; sullen rage began to boil in his gut, veins jumping in his throat. She reached up and ran her fingers through the short, ugly fringe that replaced his long hair but a few days ago.

"I like your, um. Your hair-cut."

The blood went to his long face and she laughed at him, then doused all of his escalating, pointless rage at humanity at large by leaning forward and shoving her mouth on top of his.

It should have made him angrier, but there was little to do but respond in whatever small, shocked way he could. Her gloss-sticky lips pressed, again and again, dumbly shoving his first kiss further and further into the past. His mouth remained stiff, as did his hands on her shoulders, frozen in a caricature of pushing her away: any and all motion was confined to his heart, pounding viciously in his chest. She was an insubstantial, cool-skinned anonymous thing smelling of the latest smells, as devoid of sexual meaning as a child or a doll to him, even as her musky scheming expectation nearly beat out the perfume with its upward roil.

He caught his breath and jerked away when she tried to make it something more, but the insistent slither at his lips distracted him as she undid his pants and slid her hand beneath the band of his boxers.

His entire body screamed. He shoved her off the second she _touched_ him: he couldn't simply ask for her to stop, the gut response was too overpowering. An invasion, a horror. His arms shot out and she shrieked as she toppled backwards and he was standing the next second, the zip of his pants loud.

Loud.

Heart-beat loud.

The moment she looked up at him, long almost-fashionable brown hair piteously flipped over her hurt face, he knew this was no succubus upperclassman toying with him. They had used her, just like they had used him.

_She liked him. She was drunk. They told her he liked her. Told her how to get boys to like her and she only hesitated a frowning second before accepting a refill in her condensation-slick blue plastic cup and laughing _well sure.

It was _their_ word. He shouldn't have used it, but the need for escape and vindication was too much. It was near the surface like a poison, like the poison in the air, and it had already hissed out of him.

"Slut."

For weeks afterward, the anger and shame and fear would boil up to his skin with nauseating intensity the split-second he remembered the feel of the word on his tongue; the heartbroken, mortified look on her face as he turned on his heeled boot and pushed through the small, _giggling_ circle that had expanded around them, making a stage because they had been watching ever since he came in. He moved towards the door as quickly as he could, choking, but just as the crowd parted they closed around him, coming up behind him and flanking him like grinning hyenas.

"What's the matter, didn't know ninjas were celibate."

"C'mon, she's a nice girl, Prowl! Or is that the problem? Huh?"

"Afraid of losing your virginity, little guy? You afraid Jesus watches you every time you yank on that two-inch prick of yours--"

He knew why they had let him in. Sport.

"Get away from me."

"Why don't you go back and apologize to her, Prowl? Come on, say you're sorry. She was just trying to get to know you--"

Prowl jerked as if slapped when one of the boys reached forward and ruffled his ugly hair, slapping the arm away and pushing through the crowd to a farcical chorus of 'ooooh's. He couldn't see past his burning face and he hit someone; a drink slopped down someone's front and onto the honey-colored hardwood floor, followed by a furious curse. Ruckus and flashing faces, and still their suffocating presence behind him, matching every step. His voice grew higher and louder, desperately shrill, and was always followed by laughter.

"Get _away from me_."

They weren't done with him yet.

He never spoke a word of his practice, but ever since they _heard_, they wanted to provoke him. They wanted new material and what they wanted, they got. As Prowl finally reached the door and stormed out into the moist summer night, they closed in expertly, stopping him on the flower-lined walk in front of that beautiful mansion and bringing with them the smell of hard liquor and the maddening press of too-warm, sluggish bodies.

The 'host' of the party, calling to him too loudly, reached for Prowl's shoulder and _grabbed_ him, digging his fingers in. Already in survival mode, body running high and scared, Prowl whipped around and threw his arm off in a sharp, desperately sloppy disarming move, body almost clicking into form. He pushed the upperclassman away—nothing more than a ploy to create a buffer, a bump so he could escape—but a huge hand crunched down on his skinny arm and a second one crashed into his face.

Agony daggered through his bones. Prowl fell onto the wet grass off the path, landing hard on his elbow. The pain condensed and burst from his open mouth in a muffled cry, nose stinging so hard he couldn't even see straight in the dark of his clenched eyes. Throbbing pain saturated his brain, only compounded by the gooey silence that dribbled away as the roar around him rose like dumb human static, permeating the hands cupped around his face. He opened his eyes.

The one who punched him was laughing—all of them were laughing, nothing but crude shouting in cadence as though they were cavemen around a long-legged deer sacrifice to the altar of their egos—and his best friend was prancing, howling and chopping at the air. Making yowling, chittering noises. A boy to the left was pushing his eyes into slits. Prowl felt a burst of rage and nausea so intense his stomach nearly emptied; he dropped to the sweet-smelling grass and breathed in so deeply it hurt, feeling acid tears flood his swelling eye.

The young man insisted, later, that Prowl had attacked him first—that the 'uppity ninja goth kid' needed to be put in his place and he was happy to serve. They continued to laugh, each open mouth giving sight down into the dumb, wet red dark inside of all of them as Prowl pushed his way to his feet, slipping in the wet perfectly-trimmed grass, and took off running with his clouding black eye and his off-set pant buttons. He ran all the way to his front door and he still didn't know what hurt worse: his bleeding nose or the fact that he couldn't have fought all 200 pounds of the other boy.

No student at his level could have, but that was nothing compared to his own short-comings. He was too weak. He wasn't skilled enough, he was too skinny, too sixteen, too _normal_: his burden of ordinary physical powerlessness was a taint in his bones that made them feel hollow. He was made of tottering bird bones, bound to be cracked in his next flight or before he even left the ground, crunched by fat bully fists for sheer love of carnage and the honor of intimating to someone _just how helpless they were_.

When would the old man be right—when would he be able to protect himself?

The shiny black eye stayed for weeks. Walking around at school was hell. He went to the nurse to have his slightly ajar nose snapped back into place—with no disfiguration, his narrow Japanese-American nose would be as perfect as ever and it meant nothing—and he couldn't face the disgust she looked at him with, as though he were as stupid as the rest of them, but nor would he begin to correct her because it wasn't worth it.

His parents didn't know how to ask him, so they didn't. He didn't know how to tell them, so he didn't. The silence truly began then, beginning one of many closed-off cycles that would last for years to come and eventually expand to the living world around him, protecting and trapping him--and all the while, he refused to cry.


	20. Baby Steps

A/N: To all the people that know me personally: don't hayte, mutha! You _know_ salsa's freakin' rad. (And I can't imagine a certain exotic-dancer ballroom dancing for the life of me, so nyeah.) Those of you who live in the south what I'm talking about with the tea battle :3 Hurhur.

Oh god. This is one of my favorite chapters everrrr, it's like a little joy-filled montage of JOY. Thank you so much for your effort in giving me support, guys and gals: you know it's the thing that I appreciate most and I read every word multiple times! Special thanks to all of you who reviewed for the first time, you are very brave and I heart you~

Two scenes on AFFnet, go fetch!

* * *

Baby Steps

* * *

When Prowl came home from an early shift one day, he walked into the kitchen and did a rather shameless double take—but not, for once, due to any gratuitous nudity on his housemate's part. Fully clothed, Lockdown was leaning against the counter with his face buried in a fresh newspaper, frowning slightly and looking almost sophisticated with tiny drug-store frames settled on his thrice-broken nose. It was something like a chalk-white caricature of Disney's Beast with his reading glasses. Different.

A little attractive, in a twisted way, but Prowl was hardly one to admit it. He settled for a safer comment that suited their current level of clipped communication and guarded snarks a little better.

"Interesting choice in accessories."

"Shit vision," the other man muttered, turning the page with a noisy crinkle. "Not much else you can do."

"Most albinos, actually," Prowl offered, pouring himself some water. He had been doing some light research. Albinos had notoriously bad eyesight. It had much to do with the development of melanin in their retinas: the lack of it disrupted the formation of certain cones vital for sight, rendering a good many legally blind upon birth. Prowl settled against the counter and took a sip from his cup. "You're very, very lucky to have anything near 20-20, you know."

"Huh."

The noise didn't even qualify as apathetic. It was as though Lockdown wasn't even paying attention, yet Prowl was certain he heard every word as his damaged eyes ate up the page. Prowl's slender brows rose.

"You don't care why?"

"Not as long as I still have to deal with it," Lockdown said, halved the paper, tossed it onto the kitchen table and padded into the living room, leaving a somewhat stymied Prowl staring after him.

And that, as they say, was that.

* * *

Though most men neglected to look _up_ when searching for their strangely absent housemate, it was only a matter of time before Lockdown found him on the roof.

Prowl was woven into the lotus position on the strong wooden outcropping above the porch, meditating in the winter sun with a scarf around his throat. His former activities were returning to him one by one, given time, and he reveled in a peace that somehow surpassed the strict regimen he had followed before. It crept up on him of its own accord, in quiet moments and long silences and the oddly otherworldly smells of whatever was cooking in the pan in front of him. He had returned to Yoketron's dojo the day before, and his small smiles told the man of all he had conquered. A very similar smile grew on the young man's face as Lockdown stared up at him in disbelief, cupped a hand over his eyes and stared even harder, then began to yell at him.

All Prowl caught were the words 'off', 'you', 'off right fucking now' and 'not insured', but he got the idea. He just didn't want to come down at the moment. The winter sun felt too nice.

"I am insured," he answered serenely and Lockdown jacked up his volume to an apoplectic snarl, almost stomping his feet as he shook his fist at the young officer.

"--said my _house_ ain't insured you fuckin' nutjob! Get your ninja ass off'a my roof, ya little--! God-_damn_it, if you punch a hole through my porch, I'll rip you to pieces! I mean it! The hell can't you do your yoga-shit on the lawn?! Why the _fuck_--"

Despite the dearly delayed, entirely too burdened sigh Prowl gave before climbing back down the pillar, there was no joking return. Lockdown was genuinely aggravated with him and stalked off growling once he was back on the grass, but their first disagreement went away quickly enough once Prowl apologized for his actions and picked up a six-pack when he went to the store.

He couldn't help regretting it the second Lockdown eyed the beer and squeezed his ass by means of an I-forgive-you, but the fence was still mended.

* * *

"Surprised he hadn't been booted yet. Dockers know he's a faggot."

"_Please_ stop using that word."

It came out snappishly, even as he'd told himself he would approach the subject of Lockdown's _vocabulary_ intelligently and peacefully. He couldn't help it, even as he hadn't even come to think of himself in those… _terms_ yet: every time he heard that word, his insides knotted and he was reminded of the hatred waiting out there in the world. Elbows-deep in the dishes, he ignored Lockdown's owlish side-ways glance at him, continuing with a slight flush in his neck, "It's… impolite, crude. Wrong."

"It was the only word for it, back then. Grew up with it."

"There are other words now. Pick one."

"Habit. Hard to shake," Lockdown said vaguely, viewing Prowl's glaring discomfiture with nothing more than a mild curiosity. The hostile silence said such verbal slips were _not_ to be excused for a childhood habit, even if its very existence was troubling. The huge man settled back against the kitchen counter and took another casual swallow of his soda. "So how come you're still Catholic? They hate queers."

"What? I'm—I'm not Catholic, I'm Buddhist," Prowl replied tensely, snapping a towel back onto the rack and reaching for another plate. "Besides that, I haven't considered myself even vaguely Christian for at least a decade. I have nothing to do with that organization, especially now."

"You wouldn't know it, with the way you act," Lockdown commented, absorbing Prowl's stung stare with a shrug and a mocking chuckle. "The better the roll, the more I can feel you itchin' not to get down on your knees and pray. Bible-thumpin' sin's the first thing on your mind even if it ain't on your tongue."

"It's just the way I was taught, when I was younger, and it's—I don't know, ingrained." Prowl growled it, still furious at the religious shame-based brainwashing that caused him to retain that wrenching guilt response to _sex_, much less anything more, even as logic said—the religion that logic _chose_ for him said—that he shouldn't. Buddhism held nothing explicit against homosexuality, even if the institutions in the East usually disagreed. Current social states were friendlier than they'd been in decades, and he himself held nothing against gay people but the thought of it applying to _him?_ A torrent of revulsion always followed, because homosexuals were perverted and unclean and there had to be a way to fix himself through Christ.

Maybe it all came down to the fact that, even if he did manage to change his ingrained response and begin to live a life of acceptance of self, his parents would never change theirs.

"You can't just stop believing or reprogram your mind just because someone asks you to—"

Prowl was flushed, glaring at the soapy water, caught up in recounting his surely singular agony. Then he realized, mid-sentence with Lockdown's 'wait for the anvil' smirk, that the older man had turned the argument right around and smacked him in the head with it. Lockdown didn't bother to wait until Prowl picked his jaw off the floor or finished his statement, but wandered off into the living room, chuckling deeply as the younger man turned to scrubbing his dishes with a new vigor built solely of chagrin and a dash of humble pie.

Whatever his tumbleweed veneer, Lockdown was and remained a clever son of a bitch.

* * *

"Oh-woah-woah, God don't make _lone_-ly gir-_uls_—"

Whenever Lockdown got drunk—although this being the second time it had happened in a month didn't really give him too much room entirely to make assumptions—he blasted rock-country music in the living room and bellowed the parts he remembered from dusty streets in Calhoun. It was either incredibly amusing or very, very exasperating, depending on what Prowl was doing at the time and how much attention it commanded from him. Today was one of the latter days. Lockdown was just sober enough to catch Prowl's flat expression as he walked over to gather something from a box of his belongings (most of his boxes were still in the living room, because he and Lockdown were technically sharing a _bed_, not a _bedroom_) and raised his empty beer bottle towards his housemate.

"M'I too country fer you, darlin?" he slurred, thick neck pinker than the rest of him.

"Simply too intoxicated," Prowl answered curtly, not finding what he was looking for. He was forced to his knees to dig deeper in his box and regretting it when Lockdown drew in a barrelful of air and regaled him with another raspy, off-key rendition of a rather old song Prowl had possibly heard once before.

"Now when I make that girl all mine, I'm gonna stand by 'er. Once I get inside'a her barbed wire, once I get inside--! God don't make lonely--boys!"

Prowl got up and began to walk off, but Lockdown stuck out a leg—did he mention the living room was cramped?—and stopped him. He weathered the young man's somewhat scathing glare with nothing more than a loopy half-smile, nudging at Prowl's shin with his boot and obviously thinking about his _very_ clever lyric swap.

"Anyone ever tell ya you're decked out to rival the Mexican border, kid?"

"Someone at the station may have said so last week," he responded blithely, carding through the print-outs he'd been searching for. "Exact wording, of course."

He was about to coolly pass by and just walk off, when Lockdown reached over and hooked a finger in the belt-loop of his khakis, stopping him as surely as an emergency brake. After a moment, amidst stupid chuckles, Prowl was teased backwards until he stood between the albino behemoth's knees, sporting an incredibly impatient expression. It only worsened into a stinky-thing-beneath-nose face when Lockdown tugged him hard enough that he lost balance; he ended up on the man's knee, button-down shirt promptly untucked and invaded by a warm questing hand, accompanied by a hungry mouth on the side of his neck.

"How do I stand you?" Prowl groaned to himself with an appalling lack of hope. He tried to untangle himself, growling slightly, but Lockdown's fingers were so firm that prying at them did no good.

"'Cos I'm just what you need, darlin', and not an ounce more," Lockdown chuckled roughly, giving the young man a final nip on the neck and slapping his rear as he got up, earning him a prissy scowl that only made him begin the Chillipepper's second chorus with a booming laugh.

* * *

"What… is that?"

Lockdown, passing behind him on the way to the sink, glanced inside the fridge: the new additions to the previously bare shelves included a heavy-duty plastic jug filled to the top with a thick, syrupy-looking brown liquid.

"Tea." Noting Prowl's half-horrified yet unflinching stare, Lockdown added with a grunt, "_My_ tea."

"That substance has nothing to do with leaves," Prowl said faintly. "Or water. Or anything edible, if I miss my guess."

Five minutes later, the battle of the teas had begun. Lockdown's jug was already out sweating on the counter-top, but Prowl still poured the unsweetened green tea with a prim ritualistic ease that only put the cap on the whole ten-minute steeping circus that it had taken to get the rancid-smelling stuff made. Prowl wrinkled his nose when the jug was uncapped and the liquid glug-glug-glugged into his glass like sewage water.

At the same time, they drank: Lockdown threw his back like a shot and Prowl took a brave mouthful.

It was like liquefied brown sugar had been injected into his mouth. The young officer flinched and forced himself to swallow, immediately grabbing for the jug and its ingredient list at the same time Lockdown's tattooed face screwed up and he made a forcibly disgusted sound, smacking his lips.

"Red Diamond… _tea_?" Prowl read from the jug, mouth wide.

Somewhere, he was appalled and surprised that Lockdown could possibly stomach something so sugary. Neither of them liked sweets, but the secret lay in the fact the older man had been raised on the stuff, and so had a singular weakness for it when he had the extra cash. It was more expensive in Michigan than Tennessee and a good bit harder to find for the distance.

"That tastes like shit." Lockdown grimaced, eyeing the greenish dregs floating around the bottom of his glass like confetti. He was still trying to smear the acidic after-taste out of his mouth: it made his taste-buds feel like bristles on an entrance rug, the kind you scrape your feet against to get the caked mud off.

"Unlike your chemical waste, it has various health benefits—and _isn't_ fifty percent cane syrup," Prowl muttered judgmentally from his inspection of the ingredients list. Lockdown grunted and reached for the young man's abandoned glass, tossing down the rest of the glass in two gulps to properly wet his throat.

"You only drink it because it makes you look like a goddamn ninja."

"I do _not_," Prowl huffed, but the red in his ears said differently.

Drinking 'natural' tea had become more of a habit and a religion than an actual partaking of a preferred drink, and he had literally forced himself to choke it down for over a year before he could drink it without squinting. Otherwise, he never quite questioned the fact that he didn't like it. It was simply something he thought he should do, in accordance to his new beliefs. Taking a sip from Lockdown's dregs, the 'ninjacop' actually tasted the bitter flavor and consistency a-fresh, ending with a little frown into the cup.

"It takes some getting used to, admittedly…."

"Yeah, and so does havin' your dick cut off," Lockdown grumbled in disgust, shoving the farce of a tea into the fridge and stomping out of the kitchen. Prowl sighed.

"You are beyond help."

"And you're a snotty little karate-kid." Before Prowl could snap that he did _not_ practice karate, Lockdown turned tail and grabbed his coat, finishing, "Keep the pot on for me. Late shift."

"How late?"

"Just keep it on."

The door slammed and, just for a second, Prowl felt a little lonely.

* * *

"You dance," Prowl said as neutrally as he could.

"I move my feet," Lockdown groaned somewhat thickly, popping his back over the incredibly tiny chair at the edge of the wooden dance floor as Torque flopped down beside him, long earrings tinkling. "She does the rest."

It was somewhat true—though his old friend had twirled all around him in time to the up-beat South American song, Prowl had only seen some discreet back-and-forth shifting of his large steel-tipped feet, and he wasn't entirely certain he had picked them off the floor once. He was on-rhythm, at least, and if he ever fell out of rhythm, Torque stepped on his shielded toes with gusto. Torque blew some hair from her face and grinned at Prowl, entirely too pleased with herself.

"That's my doing, thank you."

"How on earth did you manage that?" he asked, although he already knew from Lockdown's utterly gloomy expression that it had to do with blackmail.

"I made him a deal back when we were still young and hated each other's guts. There was this two week partners-only dance class downtown and I wanted to try it. He needed an honest-to-god job recommendation. I needed a dance partner." She shrugged as though it made perfect math, then chuckled, "We almost got kicked out because of his language."

Lockdown just grunted, looking somewhat miserable. Prowl could only imagine how many times the older man almost stormed out on her or filled the air with curses when he became frustrated _and_ humiliated. It must have been a difficult two weeks. The younger man had little time to smile faintly about the strange development before Torque had his hands and was pulling him playfully from his seat, making his stomach drop immediately.

"Come on! Let's go, you and me, up-up-up."

"What? But I do not—" he sputtered, trying to weigh himself back into the chair, but he was at least ten pounds lighter than Torque by simple virtue of her breasts and hips. "Wait, no—"

"Doesn't matter, I'll teach you! Salsa is very simple, promise." She winked at him. "I hear even kids with concussions can learn it."

Eventually she got him out, leading him to a far-away-enough corner away from all of the flourishing experts and their tap-twisting feet and round velvet hips. Lockdown was watching them for lack of better things to do—Torque had to talk him down and whine for at least thirty minutes over the phone before he agreed to come in the first place—and Prowl's stomach felt a little more butterfly-y than it should have under that thoroughly resentful (if still attentive) stare. As Torque arranged his position, she babbled happily.

"—but it's the only place, you know, where you can get this kind of music. Anything else is just--pshht. I love it. But I don't come much. I don't like going alone and the men here don't like me. I try to basically lead from the female role, which is heresy."

"Why do you do it, if its, ah, wrong?" Prowl asked uncertainly, fingers shifting uncomfortably over her soft, busy hands as she corrected the way he had his wrists angled. He wasn't accustomed to such touch, formally or informally.

"It's just the way I learned." She shrugged, then gave him an incredulous look. "What, you think Lockdown was self-motivated?"

Prowl glanced over his shoulder at Lockdown, now glowering at the rest of the beautiful dancers with his tattooed arms crossed grumpily across his chest.

"Perhaps as far as a cow with a hot brand waiting behind it," the young officer said lightly, turning back to her.

"Yep. Every step was murder, all the way from the house to the dance floor."

Torque studied their body arrangement, bit her lip for a considering moment, then switched their grips: in a second, Prowl's long fingers were delicately hooked over her cupped hands. She pushed back until he stiffened his wrists in a near 90-degree, resistant l-shape and found that the slightest push of hers translated immediately to his movement. Provided he kept his shoulders responsive, she could quite literally steer him anywhere.

He smiled uncertainly, pushing back a little. She blasted him with a full, pretty grin, squeezing his fingers.

"Here. Just to teach you and see if you like it, I'll be your man. You'll need to reverse the steps when you—uh. Well."

She stopped, frowning at him, then back at Lockdown, then shook her head, next words a little too smooth as she pulled him onto the dance-floor proper.

"Let's just start with the girl part, shall we?"

* * *

The only way Prowl liked TV was for informational programs: it was an odd day to find him watching something other than nature specials or the news, but with as often as Lockdown had the boobtube on, he was eventually bound to get snared by the welcoming glow and settle down for something unusual.

By virtue of Lockdown drowsing next to him, beer inches from slipping out of his slack grip, Prowl was able to snitch the remote and search around for something _other_ than custom car shows. A comedy routine caught his attention. After the first few jokes, he almost flipped on, unused to the format or feel of comedians in general, but he snorted at the next one, then the next. His finger was frozen on the 'chanel-up' button for at least ten minutes, even as his hand had long sunk to his lap, eyes rather wide in the dark living room with Lockdown half-snoring feet away.

Suddenly, struck by something, Prowl actually laughed out loud.

It came out in stages: first a chuckle, then a soundless puff of air (out and then _in)_ and then a real, honest-to-god laugh. It kept going, loud and uncontrollable, until he was somewhat red in the neck and he had to put a hand to his forehead, belly absolutely aching from mirth.

Lockdown woke up from the first guffaw, then watched in something like raw amazement as Prowl finally coasted down from his high, smearing at his wet eyes and chuckling. After a moment, feeling his housemate's eyes, the young man looked over and straightened his face up, mouth thinning automatically.

"What."

"Nothin'," Lockdown shrugged, taking a concealing drink of his beer. "Just wasn't sure you knew how to laugh 'till just now."

He was a little embarrassed, surely—grateful for the dark, as it hid his half-gloomy flush—but he found himself more than a little susceptible to the strangely proud (but similarly curmudgeonly, 'It's about fuckin' time') look Lockdown was dealing him from across the couch. Feeling kind of goofy, kind of giddy, Prowl had to stay frozen for a minute in order to prod at the new, weird feeling soaring in his chest.

Then, still tasting that laugh, he sat back and they just watched TV together. The channel was changed after a little, but Prowl didn't mind. It was late at night and just having company was enough--and when Lockdown's warm arm fell casually across the couch behind him, resting lightly against his shoulders, he let it stay.


	21. Sensation

A/N: Hey-ho! I return with gifts!

Man, that was the best vacation EVAR. I've been geeking it at Comic-Con for the past week with my beloved Tanya, I'm so inspired! I swear, I don't think I could function without her. We have some Odd Couple goodies for you, for being so patient on my two-week sojourn. Just check my Deviantart (listed in my profile) in a few days and you won't be disappointed.

Thanks for your support, as always!

* * *

Sensation

* * *

Against all logic, hope or common sense, Lockdown and Prowl settled in quite nicely together.

Apart from the occasional exchange of jabs, each went about their business without speaking. It was comfortable, a word Prowl had never applied to life with another person, even his parents. Lockdown had few expectations and exerted no pressure. It seemed he had no sense of possessiveness about anything except for the contents of his garage; nonetheless, Prowl asked carefully before using anything that belonged to the man and usually received a grunt and a dismissive hand gesture in response.

Within time, even the ninja's sense of formality began to degrade and fizzle down into what would be called 'semi-normal conduct' amongst young adults—in fact, once his personality lay un-obscured by his own austere airs, he began to find that he himself was a little cheeky. That, or maybe he became cheekier to survive with the King of Cheek.

The two men watched TV together every so often, initially frigid distance between their perches narrowing each consecutive time. Either because Lockdown was a bit of a lazy-ass or his hard work genuinely tired him out, he occasionally fell asleep with his head rolled back, oblivious to the world. The house's resident officer was trying to watch a late-night documentary about the Russian when Lockdown fell asleep and proceeded to expel snores to rival a sick engine. Prowl, without even thinking, reached over and clamped two fingers around his housemate's nose until he snorted and woke up with a jerk. Prowl regarded him in an un-amused, slicing manner and arched one thin brow; after a minute or two, the mammoth of a man grumbled, rubbed at his face and trundled off to bed.

Times like that—the unnervingly domestic times where his spiteless spunk came out and Prowl couldn't quite define _what they were_ to each other--made him wonder how he could simply _get along_ with the man when there were far more respectable people out there. If he could coexist with this ruffian, who didn't read and was smothered in tattoos and used the non-word 'ain't', why in the world couldn't he get along with Optimus?

(But he didn't like to think about that, because that made him remember that he had come to Lockdown's house to get away from Optimus and his own professional mistakes and now that they were over he could move back but he really didn't want to and he didn't want to _think_ about what that meant, really—)

The answer was easy enough. It all came down to Lockdown accepting him, completely and without criticism. Challenging him, yes, but still accepting of the way he was at present, potential and all. Perhaps it was because he broke down the stiff young man's boundaries so that he could accept himself in all the small ways, and the novelty of being himself around someone was so endearing that Prowl couldn't help but like his situation. It was, after all, the young man's first chance to be anything other than alone.

Inconquerable as he was, no one had ever tried quite so hard to _get_ Prowl, or even displayed the unsavory, dogged type of interest that could withstand chilly disinterest and explicit biting discouragement. Lockdown had been brutal and indecent in his advances, true, but it was also the direct-to-order equation for securing one very prudent, easy-on-the-eyes cop, who was currently making dinner for the two of them at the stove with a look of undue concentration. Prowl was becoming quite an accomplished cook due to his recurrent duty, and spent more than a few days online looking for healthy recipes when he became tired of his usuals… even if Lockdown barely paused in swallowing to see what he was eating, and even then he usually only stopped to check if it had meat. Disappointment and a gloomy glare usually followed.

Prowl barely heard Lockdown toss his boots by the door over the sizzle of the pan. He jumped slightly when his housemate's huge hand gripped his side, clean winter air still clinging to his heavy clothes.

"Whaddya makin'?"

"Something you won't necessarily enjoy," Prowl recovered briskly, eyes on the creamy-looking lump that was one-third meal and two-thirds science experiment. "But if you are hungry enough, you will eat it."

"You tryin' to starve me, kid?" Lockdown grunted after a moment, regarding the pan's contents suspiciously. Prowl smiled with no small amount of superciliousness.

"Rather, trying to teach you that there is more to life than simple carbohydrates and bleeding protein. Tofu is a good start. "

Lockdown crunched those veiled dietary accusations for a split-second; his reddish eyes widened, then narrowed viciously.

"The hell did you just say?" he asked, looking slightly horrified at what he'd invited into his _house_. "What the fuck is tofu?"

He should have known it was bad by the preparatory breath Prowl took.

"Tofu is most commonly regarded as a meat substitute. It is made by coagulating soy milk and pressing the resulting curds into blocks. Bean-curd cheese, in effect. A good source of protein and a clean-burning fuel for manual labor." There was a small, sizzling silence where Prowl seemed content to absorb Lockdown's mounting horror at how well-versed he was in the ghastly-looking substance jittering in the pan—no one would know that people actually _ate_ it on the other side of the world quite regularly. The very image of fond aloofness, Prowl chuckled faintly. "It's tasteless. You will be fine."

Finally, Lockdown just shook his bare head in a disgust so profound it should have been wordless, except he always had something to say when it came to food.

"_Fuck_. Whatever happened to--I'm revokin' your right to that pan," he grumbled, stripping his jacket off with short, pissy movements. "You're gonna kill me with your weird Asian shit. Next it'll be chicken feet."

"You never know until you try it," Prowl said mildly, courteously ignoring the Chinese-Japanese faux pas and flipping his browning omelet with a sudden sense of pride. He reached for the spices again, as directed, but when he turned around to gather the tomatoes he had pre-sliced, Lockdown was positioned right in front of him, waiting.

A casual shift was all it took to pin Prowl to the counter, one thick thumb playing at his waist. Already the huge, pale man was sporting that lazy, devious grin that always made Prowl feel slightly warm just beneath his skin.

"How come you never take that to heart when it's comin' from me?"

Prowl fought to keep his face disapproving, even if mere proximity was more magical than any erotica gave it credit for. Lockdown had used the phrase a few times after suggesting something kinky—but his younger housemate was too new to the entire gamut to give into anything extravagant and morally questionable, or even vaguely edgy. Prowl supposed, looking back, that he must have been a slightly boring lover to someone as daring as Lockdown, but the older man seemed to content himself well enough with his naïveté and beautiful body.

"Tofu omelets are not indecent acts," Prowl snipped, whipping his glistening spatula around to press it precisely to Lockdown's gut with a killer arch of his eyebrow, as though marking out his cooking territory with a utensil boundary.

"Nope—they're downright treason." Lockdown rumbled, pressing in.

The spatula gave easily under the assault, and soon they were chest-to-chest, Prowl smiling faintly as the lecherous, musk-scented man properly pinned him back onto the counter. He kissed the side of Prowl's mouth and prickles erupted at the base of the young man's neck. He thrilled at the unrealized fact of what a genuine _lover_ his housemate was, able to rile and tease if given the time (and a rare altruistic mind-set). Prowl closed his eyes after a moment, certain he would push the rogue away in the next few seconds if just for the sake of his omelet, but Lockdown extended his grace period by moving down to his tan neck, fingers on his left hand toying with his angular hip, the other hand braced on the top of the counter.

Both jumped when something sizzled, grisly and thick, and a quick flash lit up behind them. The air suddenly stank like burned plastic. Spooked, Prowl whirled and saved his omelet, holding the pan up in the air dumbly and staring down for some sort of gas leak. Nothing was wrong, happily sizzling weird-Asian-omelet and all—except for Lockdown, who stood a foot away looking at his hand with a grumpy expression.

"Shit," he muttered, picking at his ring finger, black and scorched almost to the first joint. The flesh on the tip of his middle finger was raw too. Prowl stiffened, gawking at the utter lack of pain the other was showing—he must have accidentally touched the stovetop—then faded into confused silence as he looked at the wound and the hand it was on. The prosthetic. It explained the smell of burning plastic… and why Lockdown didn't draw away the second he felt the heat of the stove at his fingertips. The artificial skin was burnt and dripping like putty, a bit of metal glinting through underneath.

"You… did not feel that," Prowl said slowly, placing his pan down by the counter. Lockdown glanced up, then shook his head.

"Nope."

It was surprising that Prowl hadn't realized it before, but, then, he almost forgot that it was there, day to day. Regardless of how well it blended in and functioned, prosthetics were not near so advanced that nerves could be hooked into the purely mechanical guts of them, so that meant… while Prowl could sometimes feel the difference when Lockdown touched him, he still regarded them as _hands_, but to Lockdown one was a hand and the other was a cold tool cleverly disguised as a hand. He couldn't feel anything when he touched someone with it.

The younger man nearly bit back a shiver at the now-different memory of that hand sliding down his hip. Was it habit that kept Lockdown trying to touch in intimate ways, even though he couldn't feel it? How did he know how hard to touch, when he didn't even know where his own fingers were?

He looked back; Lockdown was plucking at the burned skin-material with a knotted brow, flexing his fingers and listening to the whirr with a keen, concerned ear.

"How does it feel?" Prowl asked suddenly, nearly biting his tongue. "To… not feel."

Lockdown glared down at it, thinking. He'd never precisely been asked such a question.

"Strange. Confusin' as hell, at first—I was so hot t'have digits and an opposable thumb that I didn't much care that I couldn't feel what I was touchin'. Y'get used to it. Instinct takes over and you grab what you gotta grab."

Then Lockdown looked up into his face, expression and pale red eyes strangely serious.

"Know some people like that, though. Spend their whole lives goin' through the motions—never feel a thing. S'hell," he grunted. "But they don't get that, 'cos it's all they've known."

Prowl's mouth nearly dropped open as Lockdown held his gaze for another searching, scorching second, then turned to walk out of the kitchen with a faintly aggravated step, his dead hand cradled in the live one.

"You get one free pass with this fotu thing. Tomorrow, it's steak."

Once alone, Prowl went back to his pan shakily, the other man's words on loop in his head.


	22. Pitbull

A/N: Oh god I hate you ROTF I freaking hate you I hate you. UGGHHH. I apologize for the language in this. It's… really gross and hateful. I died a little writing it. Why _no_, I'm not shamelessly corralling all possible TFs with southern/redneck accents…

I is now very, very tempted to write an Odd Moment for Mirage and Hound. Hmmm.

* * *

Pitbull

* * *

The anxious muttering stood out like a lighthouse in the dead quiet night, after hours of nothing but the occasional passing truck. A few corn-husk footsteps followed. Someone tripped: he heard the slide of dry dirt and the snag of weeds on jeans.

He kept on shoveling hay.

"Hey! Lockdown!"

Lockdown turned around in time to see the three of them top the hill in a scuffle of limbs, the skinnier twin backing up from tugging on the other's sleeve. Telling Skids, doubtlessly, not to provoke the albino freak. Lockdown was half-surprised they were back already, being as he'd beat the shit out of one of the twins' goons two weeks earlier.

Then again, maybe he wasn't surprised. The assholes usually sat on an offense for a week or two, smoldered the seat out of their jeans, then got drunk and came running again. Nothing better to do.

When something shitty happened, Lockdown was their first stop. A whipping post that whipped back. They'd been trying to drive him out of town for two years and they weren't going to do that sitting around. Getting drunk and catcalling was better than being pussies.

Lockdown was sure it made sense to them, anyways, even if he sent them packing every time. In a way, the young man understood—or had learned to predict—their petty machismo-caulked fury better than anyone. Senseless violence, starting fights just so they could win them, was their forte. He'd memorized the fitful spurts, the dry gun-powder cracks and his white muscles always tightened in an almost audible creak when the heat rose, perfectly timed.

Didn't help that he was only in the fields at night and they only drank at night. Hell of a bother, when he was trying to work.

"Hey! You deaf too!? _Hey!_ Listen up, you fuckin' vampire!"

He stopped shoveling for a minute, patience dwindling; willing them to get their ego-blow show over with so he could get to punching their faces in. One of the twins stepped forward, all baggy clothing and gin swagger, surely grinning his toothless face sore.

"Mudflap here thinks you're a faggot."

By the look of it, Mudflap would have preferred his opinion to be kept silent. At the sharp flicker of the older teen's reddish eyes a few yards below them, the skinny bastard wilted, babbling at his idiot brother and making a last effort to drag him away before his twin crossed the line. Skids yanked his t-shirt free, nearly throwing Mudflap off.

"Says he saw you lookin' at Hound's ass at the store."

And Hound had looked back, but Lockdown didn't bother budging his lips. Hound was one of their gang, though probably not by choice. For his kind, leeching onto a group and taking swings at queers was the only way to make it. He was the only one who hadn't gotten with the program and he wouldn't stomach it any other way, scars or no scars. Didn't have time for that shit.

The ugly fucker cocked his head: the bright almost-orange moonlight didn't make up for the oldest teen's poor sight, but Lockdown could only assume he was grinning spitefully.

"That sound like respek' to you, Mudflap? Eyin' one of our boys like he's a piece'a mother-fuckin' queer-meat?"

"No-no sir!" the coward gulped, trying not to edge behind their third party member.

"So what's the deal, Lockers?" He could hear them step toward him, old boots crunching dead weeds. "You wanna fuck a boy, faggot?"

"Don't you id'juts have better things to do?" he rumbled at last, still mentally counting every step of his routine, glazing himself with the rhythm of his task: shovel, step, step, step, toss. He focused on the smell of the hay.

"What, like girls?"

Christ, Lockdown thought for the thousandth time, that cackle could peel paint.

"I mean, all the girls from here to Chattanooga are scared shitless of you, bein' so ugly—guess you'd get bored'a cows eventually."

"Yeah, yeah!"

"C'mon guys—_c'mon_—"

Lockdown paused slightly, mid-scoop. The last one sounded like Hound. He glanced back. The build fit.

Yeah, it was the grocer's son, telling the other kid what he already knew: he was drunk. Skids knew he was drunk. It gave him the free-flying strength to heave up a rock and chuck it at the albino; it hit the dry ground twenty feet away and bounced to the left. Lockdown didn't look up.

"Hey freak, we're talkin' to you!"

"Yeah, freak! Fuckin' bloodless fish!" came Mudflap's hyper shriek.

"You wanna fuck me, Lockdown?"

Finally, some invisible wave of heat rising from his white fish skin, Lockdown stopped entirely.

"That an offer, nancy-boy? You think I wanna fuck you?" he growled, heaving his pitchfork into the dusty ground, prongs-down, so hard it stuck with a woody rattle. He wiped the sticky sweat from his transparent hair with a heave of his barrel chest, pondering expression grinding itself into an ugly smirk. "Cows _are_ gettin' old. Bendin' your sorry ass over doesn't sound half bad. If y'ain't quick enough, maybe I will."

And he took off running towards them as quick and cruel as a whip, thick legs pumping and pounding against the ground. They scrambled up and over the hill, pushing and shoving each other, but Lockdown overtook them in seconds, teeth bared in a feral caricature of a grin.

He got one of them—it didn't matter which in the half-dark—and slammed into him from behind, taking the boy to the sparse, scratchy ground. The air went out of them both but Lockdown still managed to tear at the front of the hick's pants, grin ossifying as the sucker started struggling, harder and harder. He was screaming out for his buddies, tough hands slapping and scratching at him.

Like a tough pit-bull gouged too many times, Lockdown finally got as bloodthirsty and senseless as them—but a different kind of _senseless_ because he knew he couldn't win, but staying still was impossible and he had no fuse anymore. He didn't care about words, he'd never cared for words or dirty names, but he couldn't _abide_ when it got to that gunpowder fume level and something smacked anything else.

All he wanted was fear. He wanted to scare the shit out of them with the weapon they'd given him, and make them regret ever provoking him. Make sure they never, ever came back, even if it was a hope as empty as the fields.

He wrestled the hole-riddled jeans down over the kid's white ass-cheeks before footsteps rushed closer and a steel-tipped boot hit him in the side of the head. He jerked, pain shooting from his temple. His lethal grip dissolved, then the downed kid's heel caught him sharp in the face (black in his eyes, black in his mouth) as he struggled up and away, panting, tripping stupidly on his tied knees. All three of them took off down the hill and toward the lights, one of them hooting hysterically.

Starless sky wobbling as much as his brainstem, Lockdown rolled over and let the warm, coppery blood run down his chin, feeling the redness pool in his broken nose, filling that tender, raw, choking place he'd always thought of as the doorway to the brain. It slithered down his throat. A knocked-out tooth rolled toward the back of his mouth, ragged edges pricking his dry tongue.

He spat it out, swallowed, waited, then heaved himself up and got another load.


	23. Hero

A/N: BIIIIG thank-you to Kaekokat14 on this one, she gave me the idea gift-wrapped! Thanks honey, I hope you like it!

HAWHAW canon. I love you. Is Prometheus crazy or DOES he know something he shouldn't? Your choice. (Also, Sentinel is an ass AND an idiot. Just keep that in mind.)

The Sari-Bee bit takes place like THE DAY OF (and is rather too OddMomentish for my tastes) but it had to come last because… it had to :]

* * *

Hero

* * *

He hardly paid attention to the little undercurrents underneath his regularly scheduled programming, due to the ultimately riveting virtue of any one of his mindless programs, but the red and white message flipped by so many times he had to look.

_[Attention: Sumdac Tower held hostage by unknown criminal. Police on-site. Heir trapped inside, whereabouts unknown. Continuous updates scheduled until situation is resolved, see channel 6 for more.]_

Bumblebee jolted up from the couch, box of Butterfinger bites spilling with a crash onto the floor alongside his stomach.

"Sari?!"

* * *

It had started with the hole in his plastic-gelatin 'skin', then moved deeper. His right hand fritzed one day, and he would have ignored it, except gears started sticking next and that was a death-toll. It was maddening to feel like he _should_ be making a strong fist but the pale fingers only twitched inwards, creaking and cold. Mechanic-savvy as Lockdown was, repairing a bio-prosthetic (especially one wired into his _peripheral_ _nervous system) _was violently out of his league: it was time to head to his own special op team of hand nurses.

He didn't like to go to them, admittedly, but his prosthetic was a trial model and Sumdac Inc specialists oversaw the maintenance and repair of all involved patients personally in order to gather the best data possible for future mass-productions. As astronomically expensive as the tech was, submitting himself to a bunch of mad scientists was the only way could afford to get his hand back and start really working again. They were just _thrilled_ to have a test subject who did meticulous projects and heavy lifting alike on a day-to-day basis, and even more thrilled to find the prosthetic holding up after so many years. His numbers would be the ones that finally sold the technology to the health board, though he didn't know it.

Lockdown was about overdue for a check-up, so he only felt vaguely resentful and bored sitting in one of the bigger upper labs he'd never seen before, huge steel-tipped shoes actually swinging above the impeccably waxed white tile. He couldn't help testing his limp hand, trying to grip the edge of the table over and over and over again: it was like a scab you couldn't leave in peace, and the imagined sensation of nerve impulses simply dying in the corridor of his wrist made him feel like the first thing he was going to do when he got his hand working again was choke someone with it. Probably not the best thing to tell the techies when they came in, there was that 'mental stability' clause of the trial eligibility requirements....

He was glaring down at the white _thing_ sitting heavy on his wrist when the far doors whooshed open, someone barreling through them at light-speed by the sound of the sharp foot-steps. The door snapped shut again; he heard a flurried electronic beeping and a solid double thunk as they locked, then someone panting like they'd run all the way from city hall. Tattooed brow furrowing more in annoyance than curiosity, Lockdown craned forward to see around the murmuring equipment, then glared uncomprehendingly at his tiny 'visitor'.

It was the Sumdac girl. The heir. Way too old for pigtails, even if she was skinny as a boy. Grasshopper legs. She staggered a few steps away from her hunch against the locked door and looked up, dark face shining with sweat in the glaring fluorescents scientists were so fond of. Lockdown got to his feet, good hand on his hip.

"What're you doin' in—"

It was only then that she limped around the tables and he realized she had a sheet of blood all down her bare leg, from a nasty cut on her shin. She'd run past something and been gouged, probably a low bench with a metal edge. He looked up from the messy wound and she reached for him, failing halfway and leaned heavily on a display case, voice strained and high-pitched.

"Oh my god. Oh my g—please help me. P-please."

She'd held off tears till then, probably for sheer sake of not having breath to waste while running as fast as she could, but standing in the middle of the lab, sucking in raw breath after terrified breath, the tears forced their way out and she started choking on them, nearly going to her knees with the force of her terror.

"A'right, a'right, don't go to fuckin' pieces—" Lockdown grumbled, uncomfortably unnerved: it was hard to believe something serious wasn't going down, with the state she was in. He'd hardly started to move toward the little girl (against his instincts and better I-don't-give-a-shit judgment) when something banged against the door and she let out a splitting shriek, hugging herself and cowering against the wall.

"Sari Sumdac!"

The intercom clicked on. The man behind the door, the source of the noise, laughed: it was a strange gurgling sound and an even stranger accent that followed, lispy and greasy.

"Have you holed yourself up in the hopes of escaping me, little precious?"

Lockdown merely arched a black-ink brow, but the girl gasped as though struck and lurched toward him, fingers digging into his tight black and green t-shirt. Even if he'd moved to bat her away, he suspected she would have somehow found the strength to stay stuck to his front, shaking madly down to her scuffed-up knees, if just to be near another human.

"Who's this jackass?" he asked, eying the door, which was currently denying the said clown access with several dull beeps.

"He—he's trying to kill me," the girl whimpered, cheek against his chest; fear blinded her to his fearsome appearance, both the piercings in his ears and the weak red smolder of his eyes. "I—I think, I mean--I d-don't know!"

"Hmmm… you locked it. Dull and useless. My acids will melt through the door in seconds."

There was a delicate tap of glass on glass, a squeak of protective rubber gloves, both amplified by the sensitive intercom.

"Do you hear me coming, Sari Sumdac? You will burn next. Just like my empire did, after your father destroyed me with a word. Word though it was, he will regret it when he finds your body. Not that there will be much… left."

Insusceptible to the stranger's greasy malevolent overtones, Lockdown did the math in his head. No one could burn through the doors at Sumdac, especially laboratory doors, which were all reinforced for chemical spills and the like. Waiting it out and finding a phone to call the cops seemed like the best option--or it seemed like it until an oily bubbling made the racer's nostrils flare; there was a noxious black-green smell and the acidic disbelief that came from the sound of frothing _metal_. Moreover, he had the good sense not to ignore shit that defied natural laws. Lockdown grabbed the scruff of the girl's sweater and forced her across the lab towards a metal desk, ignoring her pained exclamation.

"Under the desk," he ordered, hardening his rough voice to a knife's edge when she opened her mouth to protest or just cry. "Under the fuckin' desk."

He shoved her head down and then followed after a moment's thought, crouching next to the skinny girl in the cramped space and waiting.

It took Prometheus Black two minutes to burn through the triple-reinforced lab door. He stepped through the messy sizzling hole and, from the slow, dainty footsteps, began prowling the maze of technical equipment in the big lab with the ease of a man who had burned matching holes through the lower staircases to prevent anyone from interrupting his campaign of vengeance. In a rustle of fine white fabric, the genetic engineer crouched down to inspect crannies every so often, drawling in his hissing accent as he did so.

"Did your father ever tell you that you were his pride and joy? I intend to deprive him of both, but I know he takes more than a father's pride in you, little Sumdac… what he has is the pride of a creator, of a mechanical genius who just couldn't just leave well enough alone."

Black gave an ugly, indulgent chuckle, wandering footsteps ceasing. Lockdown tried to keep his general location pinpointed in the silence and felt the girl tense next to him, tiny bird heart thudding hard.

"I know something about you that no one would dare tell you… something your father did behind the locked doors of this very facility. Would you like to know, little precious, little _masterpiece_? Would you like to know what you _are_?"

A sudden crash echoed through the lab as the man knocked something to the floor; Sari opened her mouth and Lockdown shoved his only working hand over it before so much as a squeak could come out. He growled unconsciously, the girl's hot, frenzied breath wetting his palm as he felt her panic spike. The last thing he needed was for her to snap and run out screaming and give them both away.

"Come out if you want to know how much your lawful, _saintly_ father really loves you, if love does indeed hurt…"

His footsteps were bare yards away; Lockdown could hear the individual click of his heel and his toe hitting the tile and felt his gut tighten, because he had a vague and messy idea of what would happen if the bastard poured the acid on top of the desk they were hiding under. The kid plastered herself against the desk, whimpering—scared out of her mind at what this guy was going to do to her. Lockdown was going to reach for her again to shut her up, until he realized he could see the guy's feet under the desk… narrow glossy leather shoes, white and obviously designer.

Designer meant they weren't reinforced for shit. His reddish eyes wandered, bright with an idea. He had knocked some stuff loose when the two of them got under the desk: very carefully, Lockdown reached out with nothing more than a creak of his jeans and palmed a discarded exacto-knife into his white fist.

Motioning again for the girl to be quiet, Lockdown waited until the guy's feet were right in front of the desk, then stabbed the blade down into the shiny leather boot with enough force to brain a cow. Prometheus' scream was so wretched and high-pitched that Sari covered her ears and sobbed. There was a crash—three vials of green ooze fell to the tile and immediately broke, their hissing contents burning a hole straight through the floor--but Lockdown pushed himself from underneath the desk and vaulted it in one heavy movement, kicking the other man on the way down and sending the freakishly handsome blond sprawling.

Black's glasses went flying; he slammed into a shelf of bottles and shattered half of them before he hit the floor, fluids spilling and making his spilt blood swirl into a pinkish concoction around his twitching form. While the man was on the ground, Lockdown walked over and kicked him in the head, making sure he hit the freak's temple with his steel-toed boot. He was out like a light, sculpted mouth open wide and drooling.

"F'I was runnin' on all cylinders, I'd strangle you proper," Lockdown muttered to himself, rubbing at his dead prosthetic in irritation. They weren't alone with the criminal long. Far off in the hallway, a single train of footsteps approached the lab at ramming speed.

"Sari?! Sari!"

Lockdown's chin snapped up, the voice snagging his attention like even the acid couldn't; the Sari girl fought her way out from under the desk, leg finally weakening beneath her now that the adrenaline had run dry.

"I'm here! I'm _in here_! Prowl?" she cried, staggering into sight of the ruined door. Lo and behold, Prowl, fully suited in his uniform, jumped right through the hole in the metal and sprinted for Sari—only to stop dead at the sight of Lockdown standing beside her, tattooed face surprisingly blank.

"Sar—_Lockdown_?"

The young officer looked between the two of them with wide eyes, hardly finding any room to let his two worlds crash, then his face bleached as he saw the blood—both drying on Sari's shin and smeared on Lockdown's face from where he'd manhandled her leg aside, then wiped his cheek.

"Is she injured? Who's bleeding?" he demanded before the other man could speak. Lockdown thumbed behind him at the girl. Prowl hadn't seen the freak, apparently.

"Her and the guy who—"

But he didn't get far, because Prowl had already started running toward them, and happened to find out firsthand who else was bleeding and where: he bolted straight into Prometheus' puddle of blood and chemicals and his feet flew out from under him with a shiny screech of rubber. His head hit the pitiless tile floor first with an audible crack, and the rest of him landed limp as a sack of grain, head already lolling to the side with half-lidded eyes.

"Shit!" Lockdown moved over to him, careful to avoid the blood-water himself. He went to one knee, wincing, and his good hand tested the officer's slack face, pushing his pretty eyelids open briefly. "Prowl? …Darlin'?"

"Is he okay?" Sari asked after a moment, brain sticking a little at the endearment. Regardless, she limped as close as she could out of concern for the extremely handsome officer on the ground, her hands twined over her chest.

"Conked his head, looks like," Lockdown muttered with an odd amusement, like Prowl was predisposed towards head-wounds. Sari crept closer and almost slipped in the blood-water too, but Lockdown instinctively stood up and clamped down on her arm when she wobbled dangerously. Then, from across the room, the remnants of the door exploded open and three dark-suited officers charged in, the foremost of them raising a pistol in front of his rage-red frat-boy face.

"DPD, freeze!"

A gunshot, and Lockdown fell to the floor.

* * *

It was the same clip of Sari that had been playing all week--besides the one of her limping into Isaac's short arms and falling to her knees in front of him, sobbing. Leg bandaged up, properly soothed with a vanilla Burgerbot milkshake in hand, she yammered excitedly in front of the chaotic Sumdac Tower, red eyes shining.

"No, really, he was like, huge and white, with these crazy tattoos around his eyes—like KISS stuff, or claws, or something—I mean, he _looked_ like a bad guy but he didn't even sweat it, he just took care of everything and saved me—just like, _bam_—and then he was like 'If I had both'a mah hands I'd strahngle you proper-like'--"

The screen went back to a plastic-looking newswoman with coiffed brown hair, underscored by the triumphant scollers on the bottom of the screen.

"A flight of fancy from Detroit's Darling? Regardless, Prometheus Black was apprehended and escorted back to prison, all thanks to one brave citizen. Nothing has been seen or heard from this mystery rescuer, as he refuses to take interviews, but we now go to the man he's suing. Second Prime Sentinel was questioned today for his assault on a civilian—"

"He looked like a criminal, I'm telling you! Of _course_ I wouldn't fire on a civilian without good reason, it was all _right there_! He had Miss Sumdac by the arm and there was an officer in a pool of _bleep_ing blood, what the—what the _bleep_ was I supposed to think?! Yes—yes, I _know_ it was reported to be Black, but it could have been anybody! _Yes, I saw the acid burns_. He could have had cohorts! Listen, my main priority is protecting people like Miss Sumdac and I don't care from who! My main loyalty is to the well-fare of this fine city, for God's sake, I'm a Prim—"

Prowl turned off the TV and settled back into the old leather couch, wincing only slightly. He no longer had to wear a bandage around his head, otherwise he would have matched Lockdown's white-wrapped calf, which had stopped bleeding but a day earlier.

"You're rather famous," Prowl commented dryly, looking over at his housemate, who (by the doctor's orders) had his foot elevated. Lockdown made a noise of mild disgust—mild only because he didn't have the energy to make it more than that.

"The bullet hole in my leg says I've got a right to be."

Prosthetic repaired but nursing a gaping bullet wound and an inability to walk, Lockdown had been in the hospital no more than five days when he stormed out on crutches, cursing vehemently. The city defense had been quick on his case; they had even suggested getting recompense from the 'asshole cop' who shot him and Lockdown readily agreed, but that was just about the end of it on his end. He would be getting his nine-thousand dollar 'compensation' in two week's time. Thankfully, the attorneys were suing Sentinel personally and not the DPD, because the latter had truly done their best to avert the crisis and even managed to get Isaac to safety. This, in Lockdown's words, was one man's fuck-up.

The older man would heal quickly. He always did, and with the advanced nanite-based medication they were throwing his way as a thank-you for saving Ms. Sumdac, it would be mere days before he was back at work again.

Lockdown, at least, had a dashing reason for his injury. Prowl's was the miserable result of the inability to look where he was going. He jumped a 5-foot hole in the floor when no other officer could, and where did it get him? Certainly not to an early rescue. He nearly cracked his skull open, he was told, but that was the extent of it. It only gave him the mildest of troubles (impairment of judgment excluded) when he boldly scooted over to Lockdown's side and pillowed his head on his shoulder, one hand trailing absently across his bare chest. The touch traveled, finally toying with the smooth white skin above his jeans.

"None'a that, kid," he half-groaned, then suddenly quieted. Prowl could almost hear the resourceful little gears in his shaved head churning, pulling a corresponding gear on his face: one that resulted in a slow but definitely pleased smirk. "Well, not the way we've been doin' it…"

"I have the feeling that your definition of 'bed-rest' is a far cry from what the doctors prescribed…" Prowl chuckled as he looked upwards long enough for Lockdown to get the hint. The other man leaned over and gave the officer a brief smooch before Prowl caught his chin and looked him in the eye, nose-to-nose, something that Lockdown instinctively shied from. He squinted and turned his head to avoid the scorching sentimental eye contact. "You were very brave."

"Shut up," Lockdown grumbled, grabbing up the remote and turn on the TV again as a way of begging distraction. It was a moment before he spoke again. "Anyone who goes after kids has problems. All I did was stab a crazy guy in the foot, it's his fairy designer boots you gotta thank. Exacto-knife went through 'em like a hot knife through butter."

"I never thought you would be this… humble."

Even as Prowl knew Lockdown would duck from the outside spotlight, he never thought the older man would duck the congratulations in the safety of his own home. Perhaps it implied too much about him—who he deemed worthy of being protected, who he was willing to fight for, what his definition of selfless was…or how uncomfortable it was to be seen as a guy who _did_ that stuff when, in all truth, he considered himself a pretty selfish prick, if a low-key prick. Half of it was self-defense anyways, but there was a line between selfish and evil and that line was crossed when a man left a little girl to get her skin burned off while he went and hid under a desk. Whatever the case, he changed the subject smoothly with a chuckle and a challenging shove at Prowl.

"Darlin', you've still got a lot to learn about me," he leered, reaching around Prowl and digging his fingers into his housemate's everpresent starched khakis. Prowl smirked and curled against him slightly, into his grip, resting his chin on his shoulder.

"Like where you learned to stab criminals in the foot?" Prowl asked somewhat brightly. Lockdown faltered, tide of conversation not so much turning as hopelessly crashing against a rock. He frowned.

"You ain't gonna let that go."

"Not until I've recovered enough cognition power to think up something else to harass you about," Prowl assured him serenely, closing his eyes and gauging how many hours Lockdown had left until he could take his next pain pill. That's when the real (if acrobatic) fun could start, and after the traumatizing events of the past week, they could use a little fun.

* * *

"Come in."

Taking advantage of Sari's bowed head, Bee ran into her room and, giving only a split-second whoop of warning, tackled his girlfriend onto her fluffy four-poster bed. They hit with a muffled fwump and a small shriek, her arms immediately wrapping around the boy's shoulders, which was a bit of a challenge as his face was buried in her stomach, hands crawling up her sides in a strange mixture of relish and hysteria.

"Oh man, oh, _man_, Sari—"

"Bee, it's—Bee, I'm okay," she insisted with a laugh, huffing and puffing when he wouldn't be pried from her waist. "Seriously, I'm fully functional! All patched up!"

"Are you? Are you okay?" Bee demanded, hiking up her skirt in all seriousness to look for the reputed gash on her leg. "I got over here as fast as I could, but the taxi got caught and I knew I should've borrowed Bulkhead's tank-thing, it could've, like, busted through all the barricades—"

He stopped yammering when she laughed, light and clear, and pawed the blond hair from his wide blue eyes. Sari looked at him as adoringly as she ever did, which wasn't too goopy, and bopped him on the nose.

"Awww, you're so cute when you're worried."

"I _wasn't_—" he began hotly, then bit his lip. "You could have been melted into a pile of Sari. You could have _died_."

"Yeah, don't remind me. Don't wanna think about it," she sighed at length, all energy gone from her. Everything about that day—the fear, the panic—had been looping in her head whenever she had stopped doing anything worthwhile. She lay back flat on the bed, one hand wandering absently through Bee's mop of hair when he lay back down on her. She stared up at the canopy to her bed, voice suddenly small. "He said some… really weird things."

"What, Prometheus Black?" Bumblebee asked from her waist, unkempt brows knitting. "What kinda things?"

"Just… weird things about my dad. Trying to get me to come out, I guess." She shrugged, letting out a shaky breath. "If that guy wasn't there, I just might've."

"So some guy really just went in there, guns blazing, and saved you?" Bee asked after a minute, sounding more than a little jealous. As sudden as a light-switch, Sari's eyes lit again and she sat up with a huge grin, jostling her boyfriend off of her stomach.

"Dude, Bee. Prowl's boyfriend is _awesome_."

"Prowl has a boyfriend?!"

She shut his mouth, which would have opened all the way to his knees if her hand hadn't been there to catch it. The click of his teeth seemed to restart Bee's brain. His face screwed up, hand slapping at the air.

"No way. No freaking _way_! He doesn't have _friends_, how can he have a—man-friend?" he squawked, then followed the trail of the conversation and realized he'd failed to make a connection. "_Wait_, wait--"

"Anyone _you_ know who can get away with calling him 'darrrrrlin'?" Sari cackled, hugging the scruffy boy's face into her small chest (which he didn't protest) at the sheer mind-bending strangeness of it all. "Yeah, no, he's the one that rescued me at the tower! That _guy! _I didn't tell you? My _God_, he's so bad-ass! And so, like, country!"

Bee took a while to process this—the myriad of coincidences that would pit Sari as the target of a homicidal business competitor on the exact day that Prowl's technically-live-in-boyfriend went to get his mechanical hand fixed—and emerged with a resounding conclusion about Prowl.

"Dude. He's _gay_."

Sari squinted at him, watching Bee's blank face stay… well, impeccably blank. There was too much male cognition taking place to allow for facial expressions, apparently. She smirked, patting his head again.

"How come I get the feeling I've accepted this before you did, and you're the one that _told_ me?"

"It just came, like, crashing in. Prowl's _dating_ a _guy_," Bee insisted, as though he'd just discovered dinosaurs were walking the earth again.

"Yes. That's generally what being gay means," Sari reminded him saccharinely, mind already three steps ahead of Bee's Heterosexual Failure to Grasp Reality. She patted the bed excitedly. "So, you think he's going to bring him to the Project so he can meet everyone?"

She had no idea how she switched from having a relatively massive crush on someone to hoping to see him happy with the man of his choice… maybe it had something to do with the fact that Prowl would romantically refuse her on basis of her gender instead of her personality, and that made him both unavailable and safe. She wanted to see the man and thank him properly and maybe even see them _hug_ and _be cute together_. Was it unhealthy to want to live vicariously through a tattooed man with a missing tooth? Perhaps. In any case, she was not so lost in her happy-family imaginings that she missed the long, long silence as Bee simply failed to respond. She looked down, frowning.

"Bee?" she murmured, wondering if she should check for a pulse as Bee simply lay on her lap, pale and motionless. He wet his lips.

"Prowl's… dating a guy," he whispered blankly, eyes widening further. "Prowl's _doing_ a guy—"

"Ew! Ew-ew-ew-_ewwwww_," Sari wailed, kicking at him hard enough to jolt him out of his zombie-mode. She shoved him off the bed and wrapped herself in her loose comforter, making a face. "Quit! Quit saying it! It's safe for _you_ because you didn't see his boyfriend!"

"It's not safe for—wait! What about him?" Bee demanded tensely, caught between knowing more than he wanted to know and acquiring a gossipy secret he could hold over his former housemate's head.

"Let's put it this way," Sari began coquettishly after a moment, unable to stop the curl of her lips. "Prowl likes really buff leather daddies with piercings and tattoos."

The only response was a dull whack as dear, accepting Bumblebee hit the floor, finished by something that could have been a dry-heave.


	24. Gifts in Strange Guise

A/N: OH GOD OPTIMUS SO CUTE. Christmas in summer folks, sorry. I actually received the book mentioned here, given by a dear friend, and I laughed my butt off—its real! I promise! Custom ordered for Prowl!

B'awwww. Mommy Prowl, you need to divorce Daddy Prowl's ass. NOW.

Oh, and I've got some goodies for you on the Big Person website, go see!

...WHY YES I UPDATE FOUR TIMES IN ONE DAY GOD PSHHT DOESN'T EVERYONE (HAVE NO LIFE LIKE ME).

* * *

Gifts in Strange Guise

* * *

It was getting colder.

Prowl was inside, phone to his ear. He would have taken this call to the porch, no matter how icy it was, but Lockdown wasn't back from work yet. The officer sat on the couch, alone, in the middle of an old plaid blanket that had long fallen from his hunched shoulders.

"How are you?"

"Well enough."

"You're… you're taking your holidays this year?"

"Yes."

"That's good. For you. When you didn't, last year, I was worried."

He made a noise to show he was listening.

"I thought you could come over. To Boston, for, um. For Christmas."

"I don't have the money for a ticket. I was recently demoted and my living situation has changed."

There was no apology. Somewhere inside of himself, he was vaguely impressed by his unflinching pace, especially concerning the last part. He didn't even pause.

"I could… split it with you. Do you… can you do that? I can send you the money in the, um, in the mail—"

"Mother."

She quieted at his tone. He could almost hear her twisting her sleeves. He sighed, gathering himself and dulling his voice purposefully.

"You know he will find out if you've paid for anything of mine. I would spare you the worry." His thumb rubbed the end-call button. "Enjoy your holidays."

"Could you ride down?"

More silence, pointed this time. His mother's naiveté was irritating: it was an eleven-hour motorcycle drive in bitter December cold. He wouldn't make such a trip for anything he enjoyed, much less something as uncomfortable as a Christmas at home, his father watching him coldly as everyone said grace before dinner—or as _they_ said it and their only son simply sat with his delicate hands steepled, no longer a part of his religion. His mother's reedy voice brought him out of his head.

"Your… he wants to speak to you."

"Of that I have no doubt." He leaned back onto the couch, head bowed, listening to his frail mother breathe, then lied, "I have to go."

"I miss you."

Whether it was sincere or a just final plea to keep him on the line, Prowl shook his head, one hand over his stinging eyes.

"Goodbye, mother."

_Click_.

* * *

The next day, Prowl was sitting and reading up on a fascinating excerpt on 'super foods' when he heard an enormous, singular snap and clang from the garage, below the floor of the living room and to the right. The garage. It was quickly followed by a roar as Lockdown started cursing explosively, crashing around and kicking things, by the sound of it. He couldn't help retreating behind his book as though he hadn't heard a thing when the man burst through the door, all boiling forward momentum and snarl, and stalked past him.

Living up to his ninja status, Prowl turned an ear toward the kitchen and caught the more important half of a telephone conversation.

It was something about a particular kind of wrench, the one that had created the spectacular clang when it presumably snapped in half under Lockdown's white muscles. Curiosity peaked, as he knew his housemate was upgrading a rather dashing Miata for pocket money, Prowl craned around in the old armchair to see into the kitchen: Lockdown was practically bent double on the counter, rubbing his shaven head at a miserable pace, eyes shut, voice nothing but a groan.

"That much? You sure?" Lockdown exhaled thickly, cursing under his breath. "Damnit. Can't do shit 'till I have that piece. Guy wants his machine back next week. You got anything for less?"

Pause. Electric chatter, definitely disagreeable.

"Yeah, yeah. Fine. For the holidays. I get it. Might be by later."

Book drifting in front of his face again as Lockdown returned to the garage with far less steam than he had emerged with, Prowl counted the days before Christmas. Surely, considering the span, it wouldn't seem _too_ sentimental. Lockdown needed it to complete the Miata. A brief outing was all it took, alongside an altogether ridiculous price.

He left it on the man's garage workbench, adorned with little more than a piece of twine and a note.

* * *

Deep in work, Prowl failed to look up as a metrical jing-jing-jingling approached his cubicle at a—dare he say it—merry pace, even as he deeply disagreed with the jingling and the bells that spawned it. The station became a little out of control during the holidays, and when combined with Prowl's normal lack of enthusiasm for en masse social interaction, it made his cubical the only safe place to be while senior officers paraded the hallways in fake reindeer horns and elf hats and so forth…. He allowed them their fun, yes, but he simply had no wish to be involved, privy, or at all proximal to such unprofessional tomfoolery.

That and he needed more time to think up a proper excuse as to why he wouldn't be attending the office Christmas party for the third year in a row. The first year he had been assigned 'the christmas elf' by some cruel, lottery-based twist of fate and had a pointy hat forced on his head as he was forced to hand out presents to the coworkers he didn't even know the names of… put quite bluntly, he would rather perish.

"Hey! Um—Merry Christmas."

Prowl looked up, startled. The source of the accursed jingling revealed itself: Optimus had poked his head over the partition, fuzzy santa hat drooping over his handsome face. The young officer found the urge to bury his face in his palm surprisingly short-lived, conquered in some way by the sunny look on his senior officer's features.

"Indeed," Prowl said at length, not unkindly. His prim mouth twisted pleasantly as Optimus blew with unusual determination at the puff-ball-jingle-bell combo on his backwards santa hat, finally clearing it from its perch on his nose with a brush of his hand.

"We—I—uh. So. How's it going?"

"Well," Prowl said, succinct and elegant arch of his brow communicating the wish to dispel with all small talk. They hadn't been out of contact with one another so long that each had forgotten how the other functioned, especially since the distance had afforded them some surprisingly eased relations. Optimus took the hint in stride with only a shadow of a sheepish smile, then cleared his throat.

"You doing anything for the holidays this year?"

"As per usual, no," Prowl answered, briskly shelving a stack of papers and moving to sharpen his pencil. "The 'holiday', as stated, do not apply to my chosen beliefs."

Prowl's sterile tone was enough to knock anyone off of their jolly holiday reindeer. Optimus blinked owlishly, puff-ball-jingle-bell threatening his periphery again.

"You're staying in town, at the least?"

"Yes."

"Good."

He said in such an incredibly pleased tone that Prowl looked up, fully unaware of the exacting stare he was fixing his Prime with—it was more instinctual than anything, or the product of his angular face and expectant angle. Optimus put up his hands like he was warding off an interrogation, chuckling somewhat.

"There was a, heh, a general thought, between all of us at the Project… that maybe you could come over for Christmas. I mean, I know you just said--it doesn't really count, but still, it's, you know. A good time for family. Gifts." He searched Prowl's blank expression for a moment, emotive blue eyes practically shining, before adding hopefully, "There'll be food this time. Un-burnt and intact, if we can keep the big guy away from the oven."

Bulkhead, as enthusiastic and untalented at cooking as he was at art, had managed to incinerate the scrawny bargain turkey they secured for last years Christmas, and, looking at its remnants, Prowl was glad he didn't have to mourn its loss or its pathetic initial state. Being a vegetarian had some advantage.

"Thank you for the invitation, Optimus," Prowl said after a thoughtful moment, realizing he should choose his words carefully. Not for sake of being polite, really, but to let the other man know of the surge of strange, privileged feeling in him at that moment. He hadn't spared any thought to if the house would actually react at his disappearance. Perhaps he should have had more faith—in both himself and the others. "I am… glad to know you would invite me back for such a thing."

"Come on, Prowl, we miss you," Optimus blustered slightly, nearly laughing his relief (the chance of being blown off with a snort and a condescending look was entirely too possible, with Prowl's moods, even if something had _changed_ lately). "Bee in particular. He's driving the rest of us crazy. He wants to take over your room and turn it into a gaming station and some sort of videogame half-way house for Blurr."

"The horror."

"Pretty much."

"Thank you," Prowl repeated with unexpected warmth, then steeled himself slightly for his maybe-not-quite lie. "I do, however, have to decline. I will be attending another celebration."

"Oh. Alright. Well." Optimus paused, scratching at his santa hat and producing a rather stymied jingle. "Where are you, uh, living now?"

Prowl smiled strangely.

"With a friend."

There was no pause.

* * *

"What the fuck does NDH stand for?"

"Non-denominational holiday," Prowl supplied dryly, turning to look over his shoulder as Lockdown stomped into the living room with the slip of paper in his hand, cut twine dangling to and fro. On it, in Prowl's perfect, cramped script, it read 'Happy NDH'.

Lockdown muttered something that could have been a remark of disgust, because Christmas was fucking _Christmas_, then his eyes traveled the length of twine again and fell on the wrench, glinting in the low, warm lighting of the house. He looked up at Prowl in something like suspicion or confusion.

"Well happy baby Jesus day t'you, too," he muttered at length, turning and walking out to his garage without another word.

A few days later, a battered book showed up on the kitchen counter.

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Prowl read aloud, then frowned. It had been published more than fifty years ago. The title stank of a joke, and it _obviously_ wasn't intended for the other occupant of the house even though there was no 'for you' note attached. _That_ would have been too explicit. Prowl couldn't imagine what there was to write such a large book about, but when he sat down to read it, he couldn't quite stop.

It was a philosophy book. Lockdown had purchased him a philosophical piece of literature.

The shocking revelation prompted Prowl to watch his housemate carefully, as though he would start quoting Plato or Shakespeare during the commercials between his car shows, but nothing changed. He still wandered around naked, even in winter, acting every inch (_every_ inch) his charmingly bestial Tennessee self and grumbling about traffic and tussles at work and all the general mundane things no philosopher would stoop to dealing with. Finally, after he had finished the novel, Prowl caught Lockdown coming out from the cold and lifted the book for him to see, expression intensely dubious. The other man froze, breath steaming in the air, door still open and streaming cold wind.

"Do you know what this is?"

"A book?" Lockdown grunted blankly after a second, staring at Prowl and his navy cable-knit sweater as though he were quite insane.

"I mean—did you know what it was about when you bought it?"

"Nope. Just seemed like a good title." Lockdown shrugged and slammed the door shut, passing by his housemate in a waft of spicy new cologne and freshly chopped wood and the smell of snow, somehow instantly bewitching to the younger man, so much so that he hardly heard what Lockdown said next.

"Somethin' you like and somethin' you need to learn about, 'cos I can't keep fixin' your damn bike if you keep forgettin' to check the throttle. It locks up in the cold and I told you that."

Whether it was by chance, it was a good choice--and it gave Prowl the courage to leave the envelope he had been fingering for weeks. The one that had a roll of six-hundred dollars in it. It was not so much the offering, because money had never mattered too much when his basic necessities were covered and Lockdown _needed_ to be paid back and assisted in return for his kindness, but the writing on the front that caused him pause.

_Rent: November through January._

It was December.

* * *

Though it took him a minute to puzzle through the presence of the fat envelope on the kitchen counter, Lockdown grinned when he opened it and read the front. Wondering just how passive-aggressive one neurotic soul could be, he pocketted the fat green roll and figured he could get used to a warm bed for another month or two, all while shaking his head almost fondly. Happy Non-Denominational Holidays, indeed.


	25. Starry Night

A/N: OH GOD CHRISTMAS I LOVE CHRISTMAS. … Okayso really I'm not fond of Christmas but I love writing about it. Weird.

I overdosed on fluff. Had a seizure. Went to rehab. Got back on it.

But it was gooooood.

(And more stuff at the Big People website!! Read the smut beforehand, PLEASE. You really don't want to wash the taste of this fluff out of your mouth so ungracefully, no matter how hilariously OCD Prowl is. Oh, and there's a '**Christmas at the Factory**' chapter in Odd Moments, for all y'all not watchin' dat shiyat. GIT AWN IT, GIT AWN IT.)

Now I'm off for another vacation, loveyabye!

* * *

Starry night

* * *

On Christmas Eve, someone began to yell outside of Lockdown's house.

Prowl froze, staring curiously from his veritable blanket and pillow fort on the couch. Torn from his precious car magazines, Lockdown grumpily went out to the back porch and looked down. A woman was bundled up in purple scarves and a long coat, burdened with three grocery bags and squinting upwards in the powdered-sugar snow.

"Hi there!"

"Aren't you s'posed to be at a confessional or somethin'?"

"Christmas is a very lonely time for perverts. I was on call to spread the cheer," she yelled back. She hefted one of the bags pointedly. "I just got off work and went to the store. Can I come in?"

"Get outta here," Lockdown growled. Prowl, walking up behind him but still keeping out of view, was shocked—refusing a woman who had come straight from a strip-club on Christmas, much less bearing gifts? But it seemed to be a routine, because Prowl caught sight of Torque rustling around in one of the huge brown bags she'd brought along, conquering her slippery mittens long enough to pull out a dark red bottle and wiggle it enticingly.

"I have rum."

"32 ounces'll get you an hour," Lockdown said after a considerate minute.

"You're an asshole," Torque called after him, disturbingly merry; Prowl actually caught a real smile on the huge man's face as Lockdown walked past him to go and open the door for her, and couldn't help as it spread to his own. He hadn't been expecting anything but a quiet evening the night before Christmas, and this promised to be anything but.

This would be… intriguing, at the very least; scarring at the worst. He hoped for the former and was braced for the latter.

* * *

Thankfully, the bags held more than rum, even though there was an _ungodly_ amount of it.

Torque, after jumping mid-sentence at seeing Prowl perched somewhat awkwardly on the couch, laid out the cold food on the kitchen table, fussing with Christmassy things (including a string of actual blinking Christmas lights and a frozen pie she put in the oven with an excited bustle) as Lockdown flopped down beside his housemate and turned up the TV.

"So--Prowl, wow! This is a surprise," she exclaimed, looking back from sticking her fingers in the as-of-yet lukewarm mashed potatoes. "What's the occasion?"

He smiled up at her somewhat shyly.

"No occasion. Besides the, ah, holidays, obviously." He was plainly just confusing her, by the look on her face. He cleared his throat, mumbling, "I, uh. I…live here. Now."

"Oh. He lives here now," Torque repeated, too lightly for comfort. She looked at Prowl a minute longer, as though extrapolating and weighing something he could not fathom, then gave her old friend a sidelong glance that wasn't the least bit unsuspicious. "I leave you alone for a few weeks and you pick up a roommate?"

Lockdown just grinned, looking incredibly proud of himself for snagging such a young and sexy (though occasionally neurotic and _always_ prudish) specimen of roommate. The three had seen each other every so often since December began, but all Torque knew was that Prowl had been hanging around Lockdown more often… which had prompted a serious talk from her that Lockdown waved off, but it would have been an entirely different (and far _more_ serious) talk if she had known they were actually _living_ together.

The older woman frowned as she got three plates instead of two.

"But seriously—today? I'd ask why you're here at all, aside from the fascinating company and the, y'know, food I slaved over all week, but what about your family? Are they too far away to visit, or—"

"Quit'cher naggin'. He's here and that's it."

She looked over her shoulder at the young, small man, frowning at Lockdown's tone, then hid it all too late with a beaming smile as she walked over.

"Okay. Well, I'm glad you're here. It's good to see you again, darling," she said huskily, and Prowl felt the truth and the warmth of it when she squeezed his hand briefly and smiled, then reached back for a red and white carton of liquid. "Eggnog?"

Lockdown made a sound of intense disgust and gulped another spicy mouthful of rum. Settling on the couch, Torque offered it to Prowl with an undue amount of hope, as though they would unite together in the love of sugary, disgustingly thick drinks and teach Lockdown a thing or two, but Prowl declined politely, even if it earned him a kicked-puppy look.

"It's my only sweet weakness," she explained as she poured herself a glass, pouting a little. "I got addicted when we used to make that awful trashcan punch around Christmas time and pour in eggnog to mask the flavor."

"How is it you got addicted and I can't even stand the smell of it?"

"Probably because you were convinced there was no point in the whole thing and spent most of said Christmases vomiting said trash-can punch into the backyard," she said delicately into her cup, squinting a little at the sweetness. Lockdown seemed to accept this after a second, giving a shrug and turning his attention elsewhere. She smacked her lips, eyed the milky tracks left by the too-thick liquid, then grabbed Lockdown's rum (with no small protest, as he was in the middle of a drink) and poured some into the eggnog, sighing, "Oh, memories. They seem so much sweeter when you're sitting fifteen years away and can't smell the puke."

Passing the bottle of rum back and forth, while Lockdown bitched at her to open another one as Torque bitched right back (and produced no logically sound point but still got him to hand it over to her with a grumble), the two old friends were fast on the track to getting quite drunk as their first step of Christmas celebration. Prowl had only been drunk, or drank at all, once before, and it was nothing to repeat—not because of any traumatic hangovers or misuse of alcohol, but the buzz made him feel horribly uncomfortable because it dissolved some of his frigid, precious control.

They ate dinner, both vegetarians averting their eyes from the grisly display of Lockdown tearing into his game-hen and muttering conspiratorially over their happy, brightly-colored Christmas vegetables. Once the food was gone and the pie cut into, however, Prowl was plied into tasting a few drinks that left him sputtering. Lockdown laughed his ass off as Prowl tried rum and had to run to the porch to spit it over the rail, and Prowl trudged back into the house to find Torque slapping at the huge man and telling him not to abuse the boy.

However much he drank from either's cup (which he began to realize was rather _a lot_ as it changed from sips to gulps), it glazed his vision and made the Christmas lights into humming stars that seemed to warm the room with green blue and red and yellow alone, all comforting crayon colors that would speak to him for years to come of simple happiness and brown paper bag Christmases. It also loosened his tongue to the point where he asked some questions he'd been storing up for just such a judgment-bare occasion.

"So how did you, uh—how did you become a—stripper?"

"Ik-skuse me, mister," Torque said sharply, giving him the evil eye and a very intimidating jostle with _her_ empty rum bottle. "You watchyer mouth."

"Uh. Excuse me?" Prowl said faintly, absolutely stymied.

"I'm notta _stripper_. I'm an eggsotic dancer," she said as delicately as she could with god-knew-how-many ounces of rum weighing her tongue. Lockdown shrugged his shoulders and snorted in disgust.

"Oh fuck you'n yer fancy words, the hell's the diff'rence?"

"My digniddy, ya bastard!" she snapped. Throwing Lockdown an offended look, she turned back to Prowl and gestured at the air as though conducting a fanciful ballet. "I don't _strip_, I dance! Eggsoti-cally!"

Drunk as he was, Prowl had to wince away when she groped her ample bosom far too adamantly.

"The boobies, they stay in! They stay _right_ where they are, thank-you. And there is no-o-o-o touching, no sir, and no _strippin'_!

"So how do the other eggsotic dancers like the newest addition t'yer ass? They callin' ya Budderfly yet?"

Lockdown grunted when she popped him over the head with something, thankfully, softer than a rum bottle, but that (and her ensuing peal of laughter) still removed her right to the television remote.

"I was watchin' that!"

"You were watchin' yer rum," Lockdown growled, slapping the remote down far out of her reach.

"You, sir, are a rat-bastard son of a withholding bitch, _sir_," she said primly, enunciation perfectly restored with a mind-blowing and temporary amount of effort that required another triple-swallow from the aforementioned rum bottle.

When drunk, Torque sounded remarkably like Lockdown, accent and foul language alike. They came from the same town, it seemed, but didn't know each other while they were there—and that was all the story Prowl pried from them before another tangent began and all he could do was sit down and chuckle through his own haze. Torque talked on and on until Lockdown 'got his goddamn dick in a chip-clip', then they bickered and settled down, only to repeat the same, strangely comforting cycle late into the night.

Around two am, they all fell asleep on the couch together, full of food and company. Their skin and clothing glowed somewhat magically in the TV and the crayon-colored lights draped above their heads, made all the brighter by the deep navy sky outside and the white snow below them. Before they went too far into the sunrise of a holiday, Lockdown reached over as steadily as he could and pressed his mouth to Prowl's, jolting him out of the beginnings of sober sleep. The younger man kissed back as best he could, hanging onto the warm, firm sensation and twining his fingers into Lockdown's shirt.

"Merry Christmas," he whispered against the other man's lips when he pulled away, eyes closed. Their noses brushed, only intensifying the soaring feeling in Prowl's chest as the lights blinked softly around them.

"You too, kid."

"Do I get one?"

"Shut up, gal," Lockdown groaned, leaning back on the couch with a mighty muffled creak.

"Merry Christmas, Torque," Prowl laughed softly, but she was already asleep, and so was Lockdown. Sighing, Prowl leaned against his housemate's warm chest and pillowed his head on his shoulder, curling up and falling into the first good Christmas he'd ever had.


	26. Little Mistakes

A/N: I don't quite know what to say about this chapter except for this: steel yourself. The crack cometh and it be hungry.

Also, if you're not following Odd Moments, I'd BEG you to do so today. But for only one reason! If you're not tantalized by a chapter name like '**Megatron's No Good Very Bad Day**'? GTFO my internets, plz, and take poor Megs with you when you move to Australia.

Also-also, prepare thyself for New Years MADNESS and adorable Fanzone with chapter 27, as per your rabble and suggestions! ITSGONNABEAWESOME!

(Also-also-also, more stuff on the Big People website. Holy crap, I am such a pervert. Stop looking at me like that and GO READ IT UGH GOD.)

* * *

Little Accidents

* * *

Lockdown trudged into the kitchen mid-morning, pulling on his work jeans with a grimace. The tight pants were difficult to get into, with his leg. His first few days back at work hadn't been easy, either, but he definitely hadn't been doing his stretches like the doctor wanted him to… Prowl had scowled at him for his negligence and once managed to ambush him and grab his creaky leg during a TV night. He tried to stretch it properly, but the pain was so sharp that Lockdown smacked his hands away and limped off to bed in a huff.

Lockdown looked over at his housemate, who was on his last day of his holiday. Prowl was bent over the kitchen counter, deep in something as he was _always_ deep in something. Red eyes flickering downward, as they always did, Lockdown had to think how nice the Christmas purchase—a pair of dark, snug jeans--looked on his tiny rear.

The urge to pat said rear was overruled by the urge to get something in his stomach. He had work in fifteen minutes. The big man rustled around in the cabinets.

"Where's the cereal?"

Prowl didn't turn around. He didn't even respond when Lockdown repeated himself. The former dragster finally noticed that the other man was shaking minutely over the counter—the counter where there was nothing to be deeply immersed in—and realized, from the little wheezes, that the kid was actually _laughing_. To himself, granted, and taking great pains to conceal it, but laughing nonetheless.

Screw it, he didn't have time for a bowl of cereal. Lockdown grimaced, moving over to get some orange juice. His days of opiate-induced painlessness were over, thanks to the drugs' dwindling number and his growing desensitization to their effects. At the moment, the aforementioned painkillers hadn't set in for his leg and he was grumpy about it. He looked over when Prowl let a particularly loud snicker escape.

"The hell's wrong with you?" he growled sullenly, slamming the refrigerator shut.

"What the hellzwrong with _you_?" Prowl slurred mid-laugh, voice cracking.

The fact that Prowl had slurred _anything_—and, after turning around with minimal grace, was currently slouching with his back against the counter, hands formed into 'guns' that he was shooting at Lockdown's head with great gusto--told him that his rhetorical question actually had a chilling amount of validity. Lockdown's reddish eyes widened, frozen halfway to reaching for the cup cabinet.

"Kid?"

Prowl's only response was a moan as he 'discovered' where his hair had been hiding all along. He started running his hands through it, shaking his ponytail free and reveling in the explosive sensation and very much resembling one of the commercials where they practically orgasmed to sell the shampoo—Herbalescence? The young man arched against the counter, DPD t-shirt riding up to flash his flat tan stomach, and Lockdown, a little aroused and a lot unnerved, suddenly bolted (_limped_) for the medicine cabinet.

A brief tally revealed that all of his pain pills were in place and accounted for, but an accidental jolt of a random vitamin jar sent two or three little tablets rolling onto the cabinet floor—two or three little tablets that had a striking resemblance to his Meseratop.

Prowl had organized their 'vitamins' that morning. He was in pain. Prowl was high. There was only one conclusion.

"You ate one'a my pain pills!" Lockdown roared, more flabbergasted than angry.

"What? _No_." Prowl gasped, spinning around so fast he nearly lost his balance. He stared at his housemate, almond eyes wide enough to pass for a Caucasian and shiny enough to pass for a stoner, mouth open. "Who would do—_what_?"

Prowl broke down cackling again, muttering about how he felt _so-oo funny_ as he pushed at his long face. Seeing _that_ from his ultra-uptight, intellectual housemate was enough to make Lockdown bury his face in his palm, then move to make some sort of accommodation for Prowl's pitiful state. The next few minutes found him on the kitchen landline, trying to keep an extremely squirmy Prowl in one place with one hand.

"Gal--you on-call today?"

"Not until really late, why?"

Hearing Torque's voice, tinny as it was, Prowl perked up like a puppy. A very stoned puppy. This was a bad thing.

"It's, um—hey it's—_her_--"

"The kid got into my pain-killers for my leg. I gotta go into work and I'm afraid he's gonna decide to play with the kitchen knives."

"She's gotta butterfly on her butt, she's gotta butterfly on her butt… I didn't see it but I know!"

Torque's hard pause could equally have been caused by the statement itself or the background sing-song that she preferred not to translate.

"Prowl… stole your pain pills?" she asked faintly.

"Hell if I know, he's done weirder shit."

He reined Prowl in by the collar of his shirt when he attempted to toddle away, then grimaced when the kid collapsed onto him with another loud, un-Prowl peal of laughter. Prowl made kissy faces under his chin and tried to _tickle his sides_, snorting noisily into his t-shirt and then hugging him for all he was worth. Christ, if the kid didn't back down, Lockdown was going to give him his third head-wound for the year…

"C'mon, gal, the label says four to six hours and I gotta go. _Now_."

After a pause, Torque sighed.

"The high won't last that long. I'll be right over." There as a rustle, like a coat snagged off a coat-rack, then she muttered, "Hopefully he won't fall off the porch and break his neck before I get there."

"Don't you even say that shit," Lockdown grunted grimly, slamming the phone down and wrestling Prowl (now giggling madly as he played with the other man's nipples) far, far away from anything sharp.

* * *

For the first few hours, the TV was enough to keep Prowl occupied.

He watched the moving pictures avidly, pretty eyes wide, hands clasped over his knees like a toddler. Torque always loved kids. She dearly, dearly wanted one of her own, if she had someone to help raise it right, but God knew that was impossible… on both counts, considering her _condition_. But still, having to take care of a moony twenty-three year old who got drunk on one cup of wine and had obviously never taken so much as whiff of pot smoke… it was a little taxing.

Plus, he was actually acting like the little twink he should have been. Prowl became very… gay when he was high, hip-swings and wrist-flicks and all. It freaked her out a little: she'd never thought of herself as a fag-hag, considering how stereotypically gay Lockdown was, and she had to admit that twink-Prowl was moderately annoying.

Torque sighed and looked at her watch, wondering when the hell Lockdown's shift was over _and_ what kind of warehouse would take a man who still technically had a bullet-hole in his leg. As if sensing where her mind was, Prowl tore himself from the image of a cheetah bounding over the green-yellow savannah (even high, he preferred his fuzzy animals) and turned his wide eyes on her.

"It's… amazing. It's just _amazing_."

"What, love?" she found herself asking, already dreading what he would ramble about next.

"That I'm—that I'm _here_, you know? That after all that _mess_, I'm actually here!" he stared at the wall as if asking it to share his epiphany and blessed state, then turned around again and sagged face-first against the couch, expression dreamy. "He's amazing."

He meant Lockdown—the only other 'he' available in their limited circle.

"Amazing is… one word you could use," Torque allowed, not quite sure she believed him. It could just be the drug talking—or even what Prowl _wanted_ to think. Lockdown could be pretty obnoxious to live with, she knew from years of experience, but maybe Prowl had a romantic mind hidden behind that poker-face. Whatever the case, she knew this was a relatively bad subject to discuss when Prowl's inhibitions were at a record low.

"And—god he's so _big_."

Ignoring Torque's wince, Prowl plunged on into exactly the train of thought she wanted to avoid. He gestured at the air, overawed and fighting for every word.

"He, um, he kisses like—I don't even _know_, and he wants to do it all the time. You know, _it_, but I _don't_ want to do it all the time but when we _do_ do it, it's just like I never want it to _stop_. I just wanna scream don't stop—don't _ever stop_--"

Brain exploding with a messy little pop, Torque began to sing 'Row Row Row Your Boat' as loud as she could while plugging her fingers into her ears. When it looked like the young man had stopped graphically describing his sexual escapades with her closest friend (probably in horrifically primitive 'Catholic School speak', as even when high Prowl couldn't bring himself to use proper and satisfying dirty words like 'dick' and so forth), she cautiously opened her ears again.

"Why don't we, you know, talk about something else?"

"_What_? What else is there to talk about? My job—my demoted job? My _paperwork_?"

"Maybe?" Torque tried weakly, knowing she could easily tune out 'How to Fill Out a Speeding Ticket' as told by Officer Prowl. Prowl shook his head. He'd moved from ranting to swooning as the high _finally_ started to wear down.

"I just—you know, I just feel so right with him. I get so lonely when he isn't here. Whenever he's gone, I want him back. Not, like, touching me or anything. Just there. It's so crazy to need another person like that, right? And its like, I spent _all_ of my time alone before, and I didn't even—it didn't even _matter_ to me! But now I'm finally with someone—I didn't even think there would _be_ someone, _ever_--and every time I come back from the station and see him on this stupid, stupid, _stupid_ _couch_—"

Prowl bounced as hard as he could on the aforementioned couch, as if to prove its presence and continued stupidity alike.

"It's like the—like the switch is finally flicked and I'm home. Not when I pull into the garage, not when I walk up the steps. It's him on this stupid couch. And I'm safe. I go through the whole day, just to be safe here. With him."

After that stunning statement, he stared into space for a minute, then turned to look at her with a horribly wide grin.

"Did you know he _cuffed me_ to a _pipe_?"

"_What_?"

Prowl laughed uproariously, slapping at the couch cushions and rolling a bit, completely unaware of Torque's horrified (and _forcibly_ clueless) expression.

"Yes! He cuffed me to a pipe and he—and he kissed my cheek and I could have killed him! I hated him more than I've ever… hated anyone in my _life_ and now I don't know what I'd do without him. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that just… totally illogical? He didn't even have to let me stay here and now I wanna pay rent until, like—like—2080! Can you even _do_ that? Jesus Christ, what is _wrong_ with me? He's so _old_ and he doesn't even _read books_ and I don't ever wanna leave!"

His chuckles died down soon enough, leaving him warm and happy. Prowl reached out and held her hand, mumbling softly when she squeezed it, once more unaware of the tense look the older woman was giving him. She waited a moment before she said anything, unable to face his gooey, oblivious smile with anything more than a sinking feeling.

"Prowl," she said slowly, brown eyes soft. "Are you—do you think you're in love with him?"

"_No_," he drawled, looking at her like she was insane to ask him if he was in love with a _man_. He flicked his free hand at her, snorting. "I just like him. A lot. I like him more than anyone I've ever… _anyone_ I've ever…"

He trailed off, smiling into nothing, then nestled down beside her with a creak of old leather.

"Maybe a little," he murmured shyly into her shoulder, and was asleep the next second, Torque stroking his loose black hair with a tender, worried expression on her face.

* * *

She turned off the TV when Lockdown came through the door. He bent to wrestle off his work boots, no longer able to kick them off for his tender leg. The burly man looked up at the Prowl-less living room dubiously as Torque got up and collected her purse.

"He's in your room. He's sleeping."

"Thank the lord. Fuckin' punk-ass kid."

His defamations were more annoyed than angry, but still angry enough. Lockdown, if it weren't obvious, _liked_ his pain pills. He was already running down to the very last days of his prescription, and he wanted them all to himself, every four to six hours, _as prescribed_. He straightened and popped his neck, grunting.

"Wish I'd been in a state to laugh about it. Have the feelin' it would've been pretty hilarious otherwise."

"I hope you're taking this seriously."

Lockdown snorted.

"S'not like I leave the damn things lyin' around for him to pop into his mouth. He must've mixed it up when he sorted our pills. Like I'm gonna let him do that again."

"I don't mean that."

Lockdown stopped at her tone—it sounded both tremulous and exhausted. He looked around and found Torque waiting for him by the door, already looking up into his eyes.

"Please, Lockdown. Say you're taking this seriously," she said softly. He just stared at her, unnerved by how wide and vulnerable a single word could be with a woman looking at him like that, pretty face sorrowful, but then she finished, taking his big white hand in hers.

"Please say you're taking _him_ seriously."

His eyes went beyond her, in the blind hope it would hide the sudden, splitting discomfort in his beastly face. Lockdown cleared his throat after a second and, tugging his hand free, passed over her scarf from the coat-rack.

"You've got a favor or two to call me in for," he said with a nod, voice rougher than usual. She watched him for only a moment before turning and walking into the windy December afternoon, head bowed low.

"Goodbye, Lockdown."

"Bye."

The door clicked shut.


	27. Conflagration

A/N: Okay, so I lied about New Years being next. First, last flashback! Treasure it! (Prowl only needs one to describe what his issue is XD Religion and parrreeeeents. Now, Lockdown, quit being so deep, you've exceeded your Flashback budget!)

Ur, earning the Mature rating here. Nothing explicit but UGNNNGGG MISGUIDED HETERO-SEX. Bleahbleahbleah.

* * *

Conflagration

* * *

Calhoun Tennessee. Population 643.

Flare-up.

He didn't want to have her along, but that didn't matter much to her. The little redhead was a hard fifteen and he was twenty-seven. Older than was her wont, as most girls around there were—the ones that weren't coddled or chained to the stove at home. Ready to pop out babies at seventeen and damn grateful for the chance to do so.

She wasn't like the normal girls around town, first evidenced when she suddenly started hanging around him. Him, Lockdown, the open sore of Calhoun. Maybe it was just for bragging rights, but it still found her bopping along behind him on any given dirt rode, smacking gum, trying to badger him into speaking by her constant stream of chatter.

When some boys in a truck startled heckling her—though she was flat as a board, she still had a pretty face and good teeth and occasionally made the mistake of smearing fatty red lipstick onto her young mouth to impress him—Lockdown happened to be right in front of her, hauling a load of branches to the neighbor's wood-chipper. He was more irritated at all the noise than feeling altruistic, so he told them to quit and get their asses out of the road.

Good luck if he ever wanted to get rid of her after that. She cleaved to him like a regular barnacle. Apparently nobody'd ever stood up for her before. Apparently the feeling was nice enough to make her stick around, even after being told to fuck off multiple times, but who was he to try to understand gals.

After the first few weeks, Lockdown knew there was something strange about her. They both had something under their nails, so to speak; something that wouldn't let them mesh in with other people. Calhoun itself. Maybe it was the way she stared at a bonfire or the way she always carried a lighter and flicked at it when she was nervous, just sneaking glances at the flame like looking too long would start something she couldn't take back. He only got the full brunt of it—and she the full of his—when they were out one July night, smoking.

They sat on the top of the hill, blue-grey smoke drifting up into the dry summer air. Night time in the dark, rustling country, cicadas creaking away to all sides. The threesome of boys below them got into a pick-up truck like Mexicans piling into a car and took off, one of them hollering with a gal in his lap. Flare-up snitched the cigarette from her peach-colored mouth and smashed it into the ground, glaring down at the departing dust-trail.

"I hate those boys. They got my sister."

"Got'er?" he grunted. She almost looked surprised to hear him talk. He rarely talked to her. It wasn't an effort to drive her away anymore. It was just how he was. She nodded, turning fierce.

"Did somethin' to her. She won't talk about it, but I know."

Lockdown had heard. Rumor was they'd dragged at least five girls into the bushes and had their way with them, then threatened to beat them if they told anyone. It wasn't unheard of and the girls were too ashamed to come forward. No one around cared enough to press for the right thing, not even the Sheriff, much less at the cost of disrupting town politics. Easy out for the sons of bitches who did it, having rich daddies and gossiping mommies.

Lockdown scowled at the empty field below them, chewing on his cigarette. Those same sons of bitches were the ones who'd chucked rocks at him at night for the past ten years. Flare-up shook her frizzy red hair out to the right of him, voice sullen and dark.

"Do anythin' to get back at'em. Anythin' at all."

There was a long pause before he stood up, letting his cigarette fall to the ground, where he smashed it beneath his boot.

"C'mon."

"What?" she asked faintly, nonetheless already up on her knees. Lockdown nodded down at her, hands in his jean pockets.

"Let's get back at 'em."

Her eyes lit to match her hair and he didn't even have to come up with a plan.

* * *

They ran from the flaming barn, Flareup hollering to put a coyote to shame.

She was alight, flitting from tree to tree like a flame. She looked back at the conflagration like the hungry orange heat siphoned in through her wide glassy eyes and gave her tender heart more to eat; made her turn around and push further until she just couldn't run anymore. Lockdown plowed alongside her like a bloodless spectre, long grass whipping at his knees. He only stopped when her skinny legs stopped wind-milling and her oversized shoes stopped slam-slam-slamming against the hard ground and she just let it all go, still screaming.

Flare-up dropped to her knees and rolled to the stop in the brittle buckwheat grass, not even feeling the hair-pin scratches it caused on her freckly skin. He dropped down beside her, breathing just as heavily as she was, some charred kind of satisfaction—the future black skeleton of the barn in his head and his gut--making him almost queasy. The taste of dirty satisfaction, nauseating like gas fumes.

They were fucked. He said it to himself, tasting his revenge. Their entire supply of hay for the year, gone. They were _fucked_.

Lockdown was barely on the ground before she gave another splitting whoop and scrambled on top of him, sticky scraped knees digging into his thigh as she mashed her mouth to his. He didn't shove her off: some of her energy leaked into him and it felt like she set his bones to jittering.

He needed some sort of outlet for the righteous flame they had set together, and, right then, she was good enough.

Flare-up pinned him down with all one-twenty pounds of herself and fought his shirt off, panting like a wild thing; she scraped her short dirty nails down his scarred front, chapped lips fast to his white neck. Panting dumb exclamations into his ear, guiding his hand to the sandpaper crotch of her jeans.

He even slid his hands up her button-down shirt and felt her tits, groping as though looking for something more even when the little things were warm and pointy in his tough palms. Regardless of her scraped knees and browned face, she was soft underneath the shield of her rough clothing. Flare-up pressed at him like something in heat, but for all the ravenous strength she radiated, her springy body felt unnaturally light and breakable, soft and neuter--like a child curiosity instead of a sexual object. Insubstantial, not enough to kiss, much less strip down to a cream-colored doll and cram underneath his white weight.

He should have felt unsettled because she was fifteen. His awkwardness was far less circumstantial. He was confused at a basic aspect of her existence: her straining curves and soft noises, her weight on his lap and female scent.

"Come on, come on, come on—"

She braced her head in his neck and tore at his belt, red head haloed by the far-off light of the barn, then unfastened his jeans and stopped. She looked down, confused, pink mouth open.

The panicked, exultant queasiness died out that very second. Lockdown reached down, past her little hands, and buttoned his jeans again, then brusquely shoved her off of his lap. He pulled away with a flat grunt, cocking his knee, and slid out a cigarette from his back pocket. He lit up, reddish eyes settled blankly on the tree-line and its artificial sunrise.

She got onto her knees beside him, looking at the older man with wide, too-bright eyes--an addict denied the last shuddering spike that would have rung her clean. Her insides were struggling and rioting, as compared to his grey-washed silence. She thought about it. He could hear her thinking, her fire doused, her bones shuddering from the premature cold. Looking for fault, comparing stories. Then:

"You really are a faggot."

"Guess so," he said dully, blowing smoke into the black-blue air. It wasn't an accusation: he could hear her disappointment, her hopeless confusion.

"Why?" she asked, almost whining.

"Dunno."

"Bible says it's a sin."

"Like you go to church."

"Just sayin'."

They fell silent. Far away, the shouts began.

"That was good," she said uncertainly, gnawing at her dirty nails. She spit one out. "They deserved it."

The fire. He nodded. Tired.

Apparently his time with her was worth some measure of loyalty, because she bit her lip and looked at him again. She quantified him and qualified him, stinging grater of her judgment running over his exposed while arms, then said quietly, with only a hint of disgust:

"I won't tell no one."

"Fer all the good that'll do."

"You wanna get outta here, doncha Lockdown?"

He nodded. She looked down as though hurt; as though he were abandoning her personally, which stung only slightly more than the fact he was a freak.

"Where d'you wanna go?" she asked.

"Out. Don't matter."

"My sister's got this friend. They don't talk much no more but she liked me. I—I think she's a faggot too." Flare-up paused, pretty face scrunching up as her young mind tried to get used to the idea. But living in Calhoun, learning only what they knew would keep you quiet, it was like trying to stretch only to realize you were tied back by barbed wire. She frowned. "What do you call girl faggots?

"Dunno," he said, looking over at the little girl. "What'ser name?"

"Torque. Spelled funny. She's—I think I still got a picher of her, in my wallet. Here."

The picture had long ago lost its gloss. On the wooden porch of an old brown house sat a sad girl with long, lank dark hair and full lips, wearing a tank-top so thin her bra was visible. She lived in Detroit now, had been for two years since she was fourteen. He'd take her.

If that miserable look was earned in full, it looked like they'd have a lot to shut up about.


	28. 2053

A/N: This chapter is why reviews rock, for both you and me :3 And because you guys are also FRIKKIN HILARIOUS and make me kick my heels and squeal, there will be a split-second pairing that I find, aesthetically, too hot for words. OMNOMNOMNOM.

YES. JUST YES.

PS: Sorry about the horribly dumbed-down version of 'gay courtship'. It's probably off, and I don't mean to offend any gay sensibilities by working off of stereotypes, but its supposed to reflect on the character and her limited (but functional) exposure to gay life, not absolute truth. SO YEAH UM. Sorry.

* * *

2054

* * *

Few things could turn a man, gay or no, into a directionless lump of futility like a woman with a plan.

Prowl did not come to realize the full truth of this rule until Torque burst into the house on December thirty-first, wet snow clinging to the hem of her heavy black coat—which she tossed off to reveal a busty magenta cocktail dress with short black gloves and cockroach-killer boots. She twirled for the two men's questionable enjoyment and implicit approval, then struck a pose against the ratty armchair.

"So--I know I'm an hour or five early, but I just couldn't wait. Are we ready?"

Obviously, she had been expecting something just short of a scream of excitement from the pair on the couch. As it was, Lockdown's low growl and Prowl's blank stare did not bode well.

It was, after all, the thirty-first of December: a very exciting day for the majority of young adults (and delicately depressed middle-agers) who had a social life and relished any chance to get intoxicated with their friends. What the young officer didn't know was that Torque had been fighting to get this particular night off from work for the last year of her life, and _they were_ _going out_. Furthermore, she was even more convinced to crank it up to the eights and nines and do New Years right because of the new and virginal addition to their circle, whom she had been dying to take to a party since he got tipsy at Christmas… what, six days ago?

Unfortunately, Prowl didn't share her enthusiasm. The most he offered was a kind word for the cut of her dress, and a bland arch of his brow as he returned to his book. It truly was just another day to him. As proof, he had patrol that night.

"New Years consistently amasses the highest recorded number of drunk drivers and recreational drug-use," Prowl informed the world at large, ignoring Torque's dropped jaw as he turned to another page. "The entire station will be on the streets tonight, and I will be among that number. I would only advise you to enjoy yourself, be careful while celebrating, and warn you that if I am the one to pull you over, our established relations hold no bearing to the process of due law."

Lockdown was obviously about to grumble about what the use was of having a cop in his house if he didn't get any freebies, but the glaring woman stomped up to Prowl and poked him hard in the chest.

"You are not going to be pulling _anyone_ over tonight."

"If only that were true," Prowl sighed to himself, uncomprehending of the danger of a woman scorned as Torque turned and furiously click-click-clicked off to the kitchen and dug through the cabinets until she found a wrinkled, wavy phonebook. She picked up the phone and Prowl completely tuned her out, thinking she simply was looking up some of her other friends to fill in for him.

"Excuse me—is this the Detroit Police Department? Yes? Good. Well, I'm sorry, I don't quite know how to go about this, but he hasn't been in a state to tell me anything… how do I call an officer in sick?" She nodded, propping the phone on her shoulder and biting her Berry Bella bottom lip. "Uhhuh. Yes, I'm Prowl's sister, and he's very, very sick."

The double-lie wouldn't have been so outrageously horrible had it not been delivered in a ludicrous Bostonian accent, as performed by a woman who had possibly never been within five feet of a genuine Bostonian in her life—never mind the fact that Prowl had never lived in Boston nor had any accent to his name save 'perfectly enunciated'. With an expression that was half squint and half demonic grin, Torque cranked the phone up.

It was loud enough that the two men in the living room could hear the nasal voice on the other side, which was enough to send Prowl, wide-eyed, flying off the couch as if hot coals had been placed under his rear.

"Did you hear me, sir?" Torque asked sweetly, winking at the aghast officer barreling toward her.

"Yea, I gotcha. Gotcha loud and clear, but, uh, you ain't on Prowl's list of emergency contacts, miss, and the only ones that can c—"

"That's because I drive him crazy. He would rather be dead than have me here," she said as though nothing wounded her more, expertly covering the phone-base with her hand and pushing Prowl away one, two, three times as he attempted to stop the crazy woman from ruining his life. "It's sad, really, how siblings grow apart, but I suppose that's life."

Face white, Prowl alternated between uncertainly lunging for the phone and wringing his hands, the latter of which didn't involve braving the older woman's expertly-displayed breasts (and was therefore the better option). When both proved unfruitful, he gazed pleadingly at Lockdown, who didn't so much leap to his rescue as grin and trundle over so he could have a front-row seat to his housemate's humiliation. In the end, Prowl's hands locked into his hair, tugging in both hopelessness and vexation.

"But regardless of whether or not he's grateful, I'm the one taking care of him. He has food poisoning and there is no way he's going out on your crazy patrol tonight! You take him off of your list right now, or I'm gonna have a word with your supervisor."

The officer on the other end sighed deeply; Prowl, who knew the man enough to have internalized his frequently exasperated gestures, could practically see him with his balding head in hand, far too tired to be amused.

"Is Prowl dere, ma'am? And if so, can I speak t'him?"

"Alright, alright, fine. But don't stress him!"

Cruelly, Torque turned and handed phone over to the boy who had never played sick—or played _anything_ but straight, in so many ways—his entire life. Prowl took the phone with clammy hands, then slowly raised it to his open mouth. Shaky as he was, he didn't see the calm movement to his left—a pity, as it would have given him a little warning when Lockdown's mammoth hand closed around his throat, tight enough to make him cough violently.

"Hello?" he rasped, completely failing to react as he should have. Struggling would have been normal for a chokehold, but he just gripped one of Lockdown's fingers and winced.

"That you, Prowl? You sound a mess, kiddo," Fanzone whistled on the other end of the line. "Now, don't mean to rush things, but what's the deal with this broad you got on the line?"

"Well, uh—"

Torque snatched the phone back from him before he could ruin an already devastated ploy, giving Lockdown a mouthed thank-you as he released his choke-hold on Prowl. Once able to breathe freely, the young officer gaped up at him, receiving nothing but a completely passive, amused smirk and a pinch to the rear.

"Y'see? He sounds awful and he's been puking all day. Now take him offa your call-list, he isn't going out!"

"Alright missy," Fanzone huffed, patience obviously spent. There were some dangerous and officious paper-rustlings to prove it. "I think I'm gonna need to get you awn file b'fore I give inta yer little story—"

To top off her ingenious ploy, Torque said something very fast and hung up, then broke into mad giggles, obviously thrilled with the idea of helping someone play hooky. She smacked her hands together, job done, and her laughter only doubled when Prowl stared at her with nothing but horror on his face.

Somehow, the knowledge that Captain Fanzone was never, ever going to believe her didn't make much difference. A whole year of fighting for a night off—and a messy fifteen minutes of doing the same for Prowl—said it. They were going out.

* * *

On the other side of town, Captain Fanzone set down the station phone, cutting off the blare of the dial-tone with a final-sounding thunk. He stared at the desk for a few seconds, looking up when the door opened and his Third Prime walked in with an empty mug and a pleasant smile. Only when Optimus' mug was fully coffee'd and sugared did Fanzone find his brain again.

"Prowl just called in hooky," he said, unable to keep the cavernous disbelief from his voice. Optimus looked up with a clatter of his spoon, as though he'd been informed that Ratchet had won the DPD's Most Enjoyable Employee award.

"Really," he said at last, blue eyes wide. "Um. …Hooky?"

Fanzone shook his head and grabbed his own mug, growling into the cold coffee.

"Yeah. _Hooky_. Like I was gonna believe that phony food-poisonin' thing, and that broad bull-shittin' me like she was his long-lost twin. We got the personal files on every officer in this place, and even if we didn't, Prowl screams 'only child' so hard y'could hear it from a mile off. No siblins to speak of, and she thinks I don't _know_ that?"

Optimus raised his brows at the random details of the exchange, sticking particularly on the 'bull-shitting broad'—a girlfriend, perhaps?—and then smiled, moving over and patting the heavy-set cop on the shoulder.

Unexpected or no, the younger Prime warmed at seeing Prowl seem to… acquire a life in bits in pieces: a _reason_ to rebel. The Prowl he knew would have sniffed and made a bland comment about drunk imbeciles waiting to be arrested, never even having considered New Years to _apply_ to his intellectual sphere. The station was his life, no exception. Now, something had changed. Something good.

When Fanzone grumbled mightily and started a file-check on the phony-girl's name, only to realize he hadn't actually gotten it, Optimus shrugged and took a sip of his creamy coffee.

"Well, you got the call, Fanzone. Punch it in."

"_What_?" he demanded, so loudly it made the younger man wonder why he always kept that obnoxious megaphone around. The old cop pushed away from his desk, hands spread out over his generous gut. "But—it's friggin' obvious! We need all the cops we can scrounge up tanight and… it's Prowl! That kid's barely outta hot water anyways—"

"And a little socially-acceptable misbehaving will do him good," Optimus said firmly. "This is the first time he's ever attempted anything like this. If he called in sick every other day, I'd say no—but let him go, Fanzone. The guy barely takes his holidays, much less his sick days. Prowl's about due for a little fun."

It took a second for his bizarre logic to sink in, but Optimus' calm, kind voice worked wonders, even on crabby Captains who had a severe allergy to stuck-up cops (no matter how well-intentioned) who dodged work in any way, shape or form.

At last, Fanzone grumbled and his chubby carrot fingers set upon the keyboard, only looking up to shoot Optimus one dirty 'I hate it when you pull rank, you soft-hearted shmuck' glance. He entered in the command to change that night's patrol schedule three times before it finally took—then the entire schedule disappeared into black cyberspace with a long, dooming beep, leaving him with a blank screen and two hours worth of salvage work and angry phone-calls.

Rage flush rising straight to his nose, Fanzone growled and slammed his fist into the keyboard, following suit with his shiny forehead. Optimus watched with a sympathetic expression, knowing it to be the second complete computer-crash the elder officer had suffered in his three-week suspension. Although Magnus didn't know it, roster duty and file pusher was probably the closest thing to hell for the practical and technologically-impaired officer and the temporary demotion was not at all deserved, no matter how long they had spent rounding up the lions.

"You'll be able to get back on the streets soon. Two more days."

"I'm tellin' you, Prime, that—that _futz-up_ was _not_ my fault! The stupid car went on autopilot and then the GPS wouldn't listen ta me when I said stop and it changed itself ta fuckin' _german_ and it--it ain't my fault that those zoo walls are so thin!"

"Two more days, Fanzone," Optimus called back, raising his coffee in a little toast to his elder's considerable bravery as he stepped out of the office, leaving Fanzone to his electronic difficulties. When he closed the door, he heard a few more ticking noises and yet another long, dooming beep, followed by the very distinct sound of a keyboard being thrown out the window.

"_This is why I hate machines_!"

Finding it a little sad that he was able to mouth it perfectly, Optimus shook his head with a small smile and padded back to his office.

* * *

When Going Out, there were many things to consider--but first was always the issue of Wardrobe.

The order to 'dress up' meant different things to both men. When Prowl struck a painfully self-conscious half-pose in the door-way, offering a cornflower dress shirt and slacks for the Leading Lady's approval, she frowned and tugged the clean-looking cream silk tie off of his neck and unbuttoned the shirt nearly down to his collar-bone and, for reasons unknown, grappled with his crotch until she managed to loosen his belt a notch (or make him question his need for therapy). Only then would she let him pass through to the living room.

Similarly, she bitched Lockdown out when he showed absolutely no inclination to leave in anything but what he was wearing at the time—a muscle-shirt and ratty jeans--and ordered him to put on a black button-down, which _eventually _went quite nicely with his tightest pair of jeans and shiny black steel-toed boots.

Her main excuse was that everyone had to be jealous of her exotic consorts _and_ they couldn't make her look over-dressed. Even as he nodded obligingly, _especially_ after hearing where they were going, Prowl took an inordinately long and judgmental look at her low-cut dress as Torque badgered them both out into the freezing black night.

"Can't a girl appreciate her own cleavage?" she demanded waspishly, slamming the tiny car into gear and roaring to a healthy 55 MPH—just so neither man could entertain the idea of jumping from the moving car and escaping into the snow. Prowl tugged sheepishly at his tie, only to realize he no longer had one.

"I only… wonder, as we are going to an… establishment of the kind you mentioned…"

Lockdown growled, glaring out into the passing lights with his huge arms crossed. He didn't want to go. He made a point of saying so two times, which, as a man of few words, was the equivalent of printing it on a banner and having it flown across the sky. Prowl thought Torque rather insane for pursuing her plan despite Lockdown's near-murderous displeasure, but then, with the narrowed eyes he saw in the review-mirror, her mental state wasn't precisely any kind of revelation.

"_Yes_?"

"I only mean that here will be no one there to, ah, _appreciate_ it."

"You don't know that," she said after a moment, husky voice suddenly toned down to a smug purr. "Girls can be gay, too."

Making a sound between a gulp and a whine, Prowl stared hard at the passing lights and said nothing more the rest of the drive.

* * *

Detroit was in an uproar.

Prowl, having only seen the New Years celebrations from the back of a police motorcycle with intent to arrest, was both stunned and incredibly nervous to be in the thick of it-- especially while standing in front of what was apparently the hottest gay club in town, complete with disco light-show and wavy plastic bar. Torque's presence was the only thing that allowed him to step inside (after being forced to flash his ID, which he simply couldn't keep eye-contact while doing), as she obviously knew the place. She'd been there before, and it hadn't given her radiation poisoning or some sort of unnamable social disease—yet.

It was still slightly early: nonetheless, the club was filled to slightly-under capacity with brightly-dressed dancers and drinkers, grinding hips to the latest remixes of the latest songs. It would get better around ten, Torque shouted over the thumping music—or worse, depending on the strength and diameter of your personal space bubble. While he never had any intention of braving the sticky, drunk, chaotic crowd below, that just made Prowl all the more determined to sew himself to his housemate or his friend, as he was _not_ being swept away by a mass of sweating bodies. Just the thought made his skin crawl. Had he been any less of a man, he might have clutched for Lockdown or Torque's hand, or begged to be taken home and liberated from this alien environment.

Sadly, his population of 'hand-holders' was cut in half within seconds. The moment the three sat down at one of the plastic turquoise side-counters, Lockdown trudged off with an unintelligible excuse and didn't return for a good half-hour. The sheltered officer barely had time to a) fuss and fight off Torque's attempt to re-unbutton his shirt for the second time and b) come to terms with the relatively tame fact that he was currently attending a club that _was specifically intended for use by homosexuals_ when he received the most burning proof of the latter that he never, ever needed to see.

Prowl looked over when his older friend stopped talking mid-sentence. A tall, pretty woman with a strangely-tailored purple suit and a silky swath of jet-black hair was striding straight toward the two, eyes locked so intensely on Torque that it made the other woman's lip disappear under her teeth.

"Oh boy."

She turned back to the bar, away from the approaching woman, but what most would assume was playing coy was actually a bid to hide an uncomfortable expression and a flush so dark it actually showed on her olive skin. Prowl would learn later that she hadn't been approached by a woman in a long, long time, and even if she had, it still made her horribly nervous. Men, especially the type she was acquainted with, would screw anything, but women were selective. Not to mention complicated.

"Hi."

The woman's naturally scratchy voice was reduced to a purr. With one step, she narrowed the distance between them to two feet, propping one of her hands on the plastic bar and effectively trapping the lost-looking dancer from hope of escape or rescue; Prowl stepped aside as if he didn't exist, mind blanking on the official DPD guidelines of sexual harassment, which he felt might be very important in the next two minutes. Torque laughed nervously and turned her stool around, flicking a hand through her dark hair.

"Yes. Uh. _Well_. Hi is a _great_ place to start—like hi, my name is Torque."

"Slipstream," she said, less as an introduction and more as a 'let's get this bothersome technicality out of the way so I can get on to stripping you naked'. She didn't even bother with the potential handshake, leaving Torque's open hand lingering by her ample tie-crowned bosom until the other woman gingerly retracted it.

"Nice to meet you, Slipstream!"

It was like the woman was a meteor. Terminal velocity. Fiery trail. Expected crash site: her face.

Realizing that her pointedly-friendly, bubbly tone wasn't changing anything, Torque thrust her hands in between them (distance: one foot and closing, she could smell the other woman's admittedly minty breath) and dumbly patted Slipstream's shoulder-pad-tastic suit.

"Wow, it's, um—it's New Years and you look like you just walked out of a business meeting!"

"A very, very long business meeting," the taller woman agreed with a tense smile, near-black lipstick glistening like wet tar in the whirling green and blue lights. "Filled with many, many idiotic men… men whose professional frolics and inability to see common sense through the cloud of their fucking collective testosterone make me want to kill many small children with my bare hands."

"That…doesn't… sound good," Torque offered weakly, throwing an utterly aghast 'Oh my sweet Jesus, get me out of here' glance over at Prowl, who mouthed something akin to 'Do you want me to call the attending security or just tackle her?'. All of it was lost as her attention was snagged by Slipstream pushing between her knees, smile both seductive and unnervingly ruthless.

"Then again, there are other ways to relieve stress." Torque gulped when the woman took her hand from her lapel and kissed the tips of her fingers, feline eyes blazing. "Who knows? Let me buy you a drink and you might be saving the nearest orphanage."

'Let me buy you a drink' directly translating to 'make you scream my name', of course.

"Well, uh--you, miss, are very, very pretty, and I would _love_ to help you with that, but—" Torque flinched, because the gorgeous, homicidal CEO lesbian actually _did_ just nip one of her fingertips, then blustered, "_But_ even though it's New Years, I have to say that I don't really, you know, fool around with—_drink_ with strangers, as a rule, even to save innocent little kids, if you know what I—"

There was a scrape of Torque's chair, a squawk of surprise, and Slipstream suddenly had the shorter woman up by the waist, dark mouth locked on her pink one. No matter how Prowl tensed, ready to make good on his tackling-promise, Torque's grip on the woman's front never progressed to the expected fit of flailing: with one deep, fierce, and obviously expert kiss, she was Jello. Gently moaning Jello that actually _pressed back_, hands slipping down to blindly cup Slipstream's uh, front. Prowl couldn't look away as the stranger reached down and dug her turquoise-painted claws into his friend's ample rear-end, earning herself a muffled… er, _sound_ that only made his eyes into baseballs.

He caught a sliver of kitten-nose pink tongue as the two parted a full minute later, pale Slipstream sporting a lazy grin and Torque, flushed and wide-eyed, barely managing to keep her mouth closed.

"You were saying?"

"Did I mention how concerned I am about orphans?" Torque yelled over the music, hands re-entrenched in the taller woman's purple lapels. "Like, really concerned?"

It was hardly accurate to say she was dragged off, but it was a nicer way to think about it, seeing as it left Prowl utterly alone in a strange, loud, and very _gay_ place. His experience with 'friends' was rather limited, but it didn't seem like a very friendly thing to do. Even though he knew Lockdown was probably at the bar, getting as drunk as possible, he still wasn't willing to brave the crowd to get to him. Like a kid lost at a (fish-netty and rainbow-necklaced) zoo, staying in one place seemed the safest option.

After a few minutes of trying to decipher what pop song was hidden in the remix currently playing, a young man approached him, asking if he was alone. He wasn't, of course, but before Prowl knew it, he was forced to admit that his visitor was quite interesting: a stocky young man, about his age, with dark hair and a goatee and an internship at Sumdac labs. As he spoke in joking short-script about his duties as a 'techie', Prowl nodded attentively, chuckling occasionally, and realized this was the first time he'd ever made random conversation with a fellow human being, much less given himself a chance to enjoy it.

He was still horribly surprised when the man reached forward, as if to shout another vignette into his ear, but instead brushed a bit of hair from _his_ face, then apologized with a deep laugh. It was in context: he asked what conditioner Prowl used and if he could let his hair loose. Just to see.

Feeling very, very disconcerted and slightly flattered—a lethal combination for accepting strange behavior in a strange environment, it would seem--Prowl did so, and only cleared his throat nervously and looked away when the stranger gently ran his hand through the tips of his dark hair, then took a step closer with a warm grin.

He only got another half-sentence out before someone bumped into Prowl from behind, one big hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, darlin'."

The officer barely even _heard_ his housemate's voice: Prowl just felt the growl through his back and looked up, eyes wide. He was struck once again by how _horribly huge_ Lockdown was, both shoulders and height, seconds before the older man looped his arm around him, shoved his hand in Prowl's back pocket, grabbed his ass, and leaned down to force an unexpected, messy, and absolutely amazing kiss on the young man crammed against his chest.

Prowl nearly shot up to his toes in shock, but the warmth and depth of the other's mouth sucked the cartilage from his knees—and demolished any thought of pulling away and saving face in front of the man he'd just met and had a pleasant conversation with. His hand crept up and was locked into Lockdown's button-down, kneading like a cat as the other man performed a mirroring motion on his rear and turned one kiss into two and three and four. He was pushed close enough that Lockdown's jean-clad thigh nearly parted his shaking legs, and the realization he might be well on his way to pushing mindlessly up against that same thigh made Prowl realize several other things.

He was making out.

He was making out in public.

He was making out in public _with a man_.

If he had looked around him, he would have discovered that it was actually quite a regular happening in gay clubs, or any kind of club for that matter, and no one was paying him the slightest bit of attention… but his blood-borne conservatism refused to let him get away with it. Abruptly cold and sinful all over, the young officer gasped and pulled away from Lockdown until his grip gave; he stumbled the rest of the way, smacking into the bar. When he was at a safe distance, he threw his arms out, blood returning only to turn his face splotchy and ugly.

"What—_what_ was _that_?!"

"That was me takin' care'a business," Lockdown rumbled with a shitty grin, following him. He reached down and gave Prowl's perky butt one more hard squeeze before returning his hand to the pocket it belonged to—his own front left. Prowl nearly snarled, stupidly cupping his own rear to prevent further molestation, then noticed that they were completely alone.

"He's gone," Prowl announced to no one in particular.

"'Probly had a call to take."

"Doubtful! You probably—you probably chased him off with your—indecorous actions!" Prowl sputtered, reaching into the depths of his 'horribly elitist vocabulary' to describe what had just happened to him, resulting indignity included. Lockdown just rolled his eyes and glared over the crowd.

"He left 'cause he knew he wouldn't be gettin' to bend you over tonight."

"_What_?"

Lockdown stared hard at Prowl, reddish eyes locked on the younger man's clueless face, then shook his head.

"Jesus Christ, you really don't get it."

"Excuse me? I don't get _what_?"

But Lockdown was absorbed in downing the entirety of his dark ale in one drink, white Adam's apple bobbing as the unholy amount of liquid simply disappeared. He parted from the bottle with a breath and a dull burp, wiping his mouth.

"You want a beer or a pussy drink?" Lockdown growled, setting his beer bottle onto a nearby counter. He glared around at the assembled people dancing wildly to all sides of him, as if to impress upon everybody once again how much he _hated_ gay bars.

"Excuse me?" Prowl yelled over the music. Lockdown only shook his head, expression both well-adjusted and disgusted as he turned.

"I'll get you a pussy drink."

And with that he trundled off through the undulating crowd to the main bar, huge thumbs in his pockets, leaving Prowl open-mouthed, flustered and alone once again. Prowl didn't have time to do anything but watch in confusion and pout a little before his shoulder was grabbed again. Thankfully, this time it was soft and female, and connected to a woman with a wide-eyed expression and a ridiculous amount of dark lipstick smeared over her mouth.

"Move. _Move_," Torque muttered through her teeth, pushing him in the small of his back.

"What? What happened to your—ah—"

His friend cut him off by snagging him around the waist and forcing him into a trot as they navigated the human corridors of the dance-floor, all the while looking tensely over her shoulder.

"My 'ah' is a very scary bitch who nearly took my tonsils to wear as earrings. Which is why we are walking very quickly to the nearest dark corner where I can hide from her in peace like the mature adult that I am."

They found a suitable dark corner after a brief stop at the bar, even if they had to chase out a pair of very _busy_ teenaged boys before they could claim it. Prowl followed them with his eyes, lingering mostly on their intertwined hands, but blinked back to attention when Torque collapsed onto the table with a moan.

"My _God_, she was a psycho! Any longer and she might've slapped a collar around my neck and taken me out back… _jeez_." She sighed, then looked up at him, reaching for his hand. "I'm so sorry I left you there, hon. I really didn't mean to. I'm too old to be doing that sort of stupid stuff and I know it. Will you forgive me?"

The older woman still managed to look slightly dignified while cleaning the other woman's dark lipstick off of her mouth and—teeth? Prowl shuddered in horror, which Torque apparently took as a sign of forgiveness. Once she was sufficiently cleaned and had bemoaned the fact that heartless bitches _always_ kiss the best, Torque re-settled her curves on the stool next to him, crossing her legs, took a big, cleansing gulp of her beer and grinned at him.

"So. Someone was gettin' himself some play back there."

It took a minute to realize what she was referring to (or imagine how she had seen it through her… obviously engaging activities). Prowl bit his lip and shook his head, still utterly lost.

"He wasn't—" he began blankly

"He was flirting with you," Torque said flatly, taking another sip.

"No, he wasn't," Prowl insisted, the fact that no one was _listening_ to him starting to grate on his nerves-of-steel. "We were simply having a conversation."

"If he stands _that_ close to you, music or no, he's definitely flirting with you. If he touches you in any way, especially your face or your chest, he wants to get in your pants. If he stomps over and goes '_Hey dar-r-rlin'_—"

She reached for him: Prowl huffed and tried to squirm away as she grabbed his butt and jerked him close. He was half afraid she would actually kiss him, but she just swatted him on the ass (funny, how it had become 'just swatted him on the ass', but then, that was his current company) with a laugh.

"And starts sucking your face off, he's nothing but a jealous alpha male who wants to scare off the guy attempting to poach his boyfriend."

Reacting was difficult: it was a potent mixture of embarrassment, shock, and a creeping warm feeling almost uncomfortable in its intensity, all set off by that little word at the end. Prowl tried to frown it all away, controlling how much showed on his long, pretty face. His thoughts churned; eventually, he looked up at Torque and shouted:

"He was flirting with me?"

"You really don't get it," she said with a heave of her showy bosom.

"Stop _saying_ that!"

"Okay, let's start from the beginning."

* * *

Soon, the two were deep in the complexities of what flirting was.

Conclusion? No one had any solid definition of what flirting was. Was it a returned joke, was it a batting of the eyelashes? Was it physical touch, like an unnecessary jab to the side? Was it a pleasant conversation where one person had no idea whatsoever that flirting was taking place? No one knew. Ever.

There were, however, some key elements to enticing a potential mate.

"This—"

Torque pushed him a little bit away, showy and self-important, as if to make room for a great acrobatic move she was about to perform. She took an easy, slinky stance at the bar, one arm propped on the bar. She smiled.

"This is me checking you out."

Her eyes performed an upward swish-and-flick maneuver that was half casual interest and half lidded eyes. To any red-blooded male, it might have produced a jolt of his stomach, but to Prowl it was a physical motion he attempted to reduce to pure procedure: up to the right, slight blink, quick eye-contact, down with the lashes. One quarter-second allotted to each.

When viewed from more than five feet, it could have been completely accidental, and that's the thing that confused Prowl to death. Flirting, it seemed, was Russian roulette—every move engineered to convey utter disinterest or cool ease, (because to _appear_ interested seemed desperate) all the while hoping that the other person was _looking_ at you often enough to see you looking at them, once again in a completely disinterested and infrequent manner.

It seemed like waiting for the planets to align. With the statistical chances of catching even 3 of the 5 'flirt stares' allotted to an interested-but-not-desperate party, it was amazing that the human race continued to perpetuate itself after arranged marriages died out. The chances of approaching a person who you thought was interested in you (thus assured and encouraged by your friends) and finding out that they were just scanning the room and happened to have something in their eye at the time… well, the potential for embarrassment was incredibly high.

Prowl was filled with an absurd relief that he had never been forced to deal with such indirect social acrobatics: his previous total isolation from society had had at least one advantage. In some strange way, he now valued Lockdown's woefully direct version of courtship, handcuffs and all, even if he still occasionally had to guess at what the older man wanted from him in the long run. At least Prowl knew he was actually interested the whole time.

"Of course, your bag is a little bit different."

"Meaning?"

"Gay flirting is a little more straight-forward, I guess," she laughed. "If a guy looks at you like this, he's kind of interested. But if he does this, he's definitely cruising you."

"Cruising?" Prowl repeated in disbelief, third cocktail half-frozen to his mouth.

"Yeah. But if he takes you out to another bar, or his place, he just wants sex. If he takes you 'outside', or makes a date for later, he probably wants to get to know you. Notice I say _probably_."

"How do you _know_ all of this?!"

"Are you kidding me? I had to learn the rules so I could translate them for Lockdown--let him speak the language," she explained, then shook her head despairingly. "Not that he ever _used_ them. I could never get him to go anywhere to meet guys. He hates all of it and that makes for a lot of lonely Friday nights, you know? I worried about him for a long time, but I guess he's just found his own way."

Prowl frowned into his cup, a sudden disquiet settling in his gut. Hearing about his housemate's romantic life--or simply _life_--before he had entered it was always made him strangely uncomfortable, but the fact that Lockdown may have been just as alone as he was before all this had never occurred to him.

He seemed… so stable and at ease with himself. The man had a horrible sexual drive and skill to match—surely he must have learned that from somewhere? Still, Prowl couldn't imagine what kind of person could get along with the older man for more than a day, even as he fitted firmly in that same slot. Once again, his skin thrilled at how life had placed him here, against all chance and circumstance.

Torque continued, delving into strangest of gay courting signals and customs for his personal edification, like the handkerchief code. The young man had to stop her half-way through on that one, if just because of his outrageous fear of fetishes, but the fact that he would be having _none_ of this if he were sober was a freeing realization, somehow. It gave him leave to laugh and hide his face in his hands when Torque demonstrated an expression she dubbed 'sexy eyes', which actually (perhaps due more to her drunkenness than his skewed sense of 'social perception') looked more like a death glare or an attempt to dislodge something from her eyelashes.

Absolutely stymied at how single adults interacted, he laughed and played along with a fourth, then a fifth drink in hand, all delivered by Lockdown as he visited them every so often, only to grumble and drop off a new load of alcohol. Within two hours, they were thoroughly drunk and had it down to a drill, even devising a few imaginary signals.

"What am I doing now?"

"You are slightly interested but not convinced of the other's sexual prowess," Prowl slurred, draining the last of his drink and flinching when the ice tumbled down knocked into his nose. "And you don't want to give him your number as he resembles a homeless man who has contracted syphilis."

Torque scratched her nose and raised her eyebrow, eyes flicking left and right.

"You are suspicious that the other is an undercover cop posing as a prostitute but are still interested in dinner so long as he or she purchases it."

Needless to say, at five minutes to midnight, Prowl was unforgivably intoxicated.

Lockdown, finally mooring himself at their booth like the malcontent oil tanker he was, had managed to get drunk enough to actually enjoy himself a bit, and so his deep scowl had lightened to a smirk. As people began to still and abandon the throng of the dancefloor for the anticipation of the 2053 countdown, the two tiny people managed to drag their resident mammoth albino out into the middle of the crowd, growling all the way.

The disconcerting effects of alcohol were still new to Prowl, newer still that he could experience them without feeling the need to clamp down and control himself. He still thanked God he didn't remember what had happened when he took one of Lockdown's pain pills and apparently got very high, but when drunk, he wasn't quite sure where his skinny body was, or his weight, or his movements. So, when he crashed into Lockdown's chest at one minute to midnight, he was so heavy and hazy with drink that he actually managed to knock Lockdown off of at least one of his feet and send the majority of the man's twenty-third beer slopping all down his black dress shirt.

"Jesus Christ, kid!"

It might as well have been him under the cold splash: Prowl jerked back, face immediately radiating heat.

He tried painfully hard to sober up, _right then_, and make sure he didn't do anything else that was stupid, but it was so difficult when the multi-colored room was spinning… thankfully, Lockdown's startled snarl mellowed into a smirk and he pulled Prowl toward him. The spilled beer quickly soaked through Prowl's own shirt, practically sticking them together. Lockdown rubbed the small of his back as the crowd around them counted down to the new year, looking fondly down at the young man who wet his lips and smiled shyly.

2053 began with a kiss between two outcasts who had discarded their isolation and their safety to make room for one another; it began with Torque shrieking happy New Years next to them, jumping up and down, her own beer slopping all over the floor as she hugged a girl in a green top and was pulled down for a hard kiss; it began with that beer toppling out of her fingers and rolling away into the exultant crowd, all so ready for the next chance to breathe, love and live and screaming that same freedom to the roof.

If alcohol lowered sex drive, it also lowered inhibitions, and that found Prowl grasping for more of the man against him, suddenly frantic to make a connection. He yanked Lockdown's shirt from his jeans and slid his hands underneath it, pressing at his warm chest and sides and pressing up into the kiss. Lockdown finally drew away, reddish eyes glinting.

"You keep doin' that, I won't even wait t'get you home," he whispered into his boyfriend's mouth and Prowl remembered no more.

* * *

They woke up the next morning in the big queen bed, heads aching—except the usual double 'they' had expanded to include a third party member, dressed in the lacy female version of their underpants.

Well, Prowl's underpants.

Stirring from a dead sleep, Prowl curled into the warm thing next to him, not noting that it was far too soft and curvy to be Lockdown. He nestled in, huffing a strand of hair from his mouth, and made to wrap his arms around 'him'. He noticed the tense swelling in his egg-shell head seconds before the very lacy, very full bra underneath his hand.

The young man jerked up and away as though Torque's woman-skin had burned him, shaking the whole creaky mattress and setting off a mirroring earthquake in his head. He literally cried out, clutching the sides of his head as a huge throb of pain forced his temples five yards apart. The simplest of motions and he was reduced to a flinching animal; Prowl sagged against the headboard, dehydrated, bewildered and thoroughly defeated.

His ruckus didn't go unnoticed. The two stirred to either side of him with respective groans, each deep and husky. Then Prowl realized he was, in fact, waking up between _two_ people instead of the usual _one_, both very naked and very incapable of remembering what they'd done the previous night--which wouldn't have been so very scary if he didn't… hurt in strange places.

Finally resurfacing into the achy world of the living, where the light coming from between the small bedroom shades was like lemon daggers to their eyes, the three looked at each other; Lockdown, taking the lead, simply growled and lay back down on the old bed, one white arm across his eyes, and it was officially not awkward.

Torque just heaved a deep sigh and flicked the sheets off of herself, one hand to her head and the incredibly tangled and beer-scented hair atop it.

"If I give birth to a gay Japanese albino baby nine months from now, I'm kicking both of your asses," she groaned thickly, staggering to the bathroom hallway as if she had her own unmentionable aches. "And in return for fixing my uterus, paying for all the beer you'd want for the rest of your life. If you _want_ any after that."

Smiling as much as his throbbing head would allow, Prowl let out a tense breath and gingerly lay back onto the bed, back onto Lockdown's warm chest. He mumbled appreciatively at the hand that rose to trail lazily through his hair, and wondered if, seeing as he _was_ suffering from food poisoning, he could stay in bed with his boyfriend all day. After being forced to impersonate a socially-acceptable twenty-something year old for seven hours and five cocktails, he felt he deserved a chance to wind down into his old prudish self, and promised himself he would turn his nose up the next time Lockdown made an off-color comment.

When Torque slipped on the linoleum and nearly took down the shower door along with her with a splitting clatter, cursing her mushy brains out all the while, the two men didn't even stir from their deep sleep; Prowl just nosed further into Lockdown's warm neck and sighed like he didn't even realize that this was what people waited for all their lives.


	29. Business Call

* * *

Business Call

* * *

"Lockdown! Old buddy!"

The first thing anybody noticed about the springy Indian man was his close-cut tan suit, heavily seamed and cut with swatches of strangely bright purple. Next was his hair, combed back and shining like a freshly waxed tile floor in the mid-January sun. Third was his blocky purple shades, which he nudged down his nose to grin at the horribly pale man blocking the doorway to his ramshackle house.

"What's hanging? What's jiving, what's up, down or sideways? Whichever angle is most flattering for ya," he cooed, chuckling as he offered his strong brown hand. Lockdown turned away from it, shrugging off from the door-frame and retreating to depths of the un-lit, empty house with only the slightest of limps.

"Nothin'."

"Really? I haven't seen you in _a year_, guy!" Swindle exclaimed, following him into the kitchen. Lockdown fell into one of the creaking wooden chairs, the shorter man remaining standing with his shiny black briefcase, which he heaved onto the scuffed table. "Gotta be more than that—c'mon, regale me while I set my gear up. A guy like you never has a dull moment!"

"Quit racin'," Lockdown grunted after a long pause, staring out the kitchen window. The glass was dirty, but the snow outside was dirtier still. Hadn't been white for a long time, what with cars and people coming and going.

Prowl went out and stood in the powder for a good half-hour the first time they had a hard snow, just staring up into the blue-grey sky with the white up to his calves. It wasn't like he'd never seen the stuff before, living in Detroit, he said it was just better here, decorating the trees and the plain and the small, cramped house. His smile proved it.

"Good! Always said you were drawing too much attention to yourself with those stunts. You've run your lap, now it's time to settle down. You know what I mean, get in with something with _security_, something reliable—nothing more reliable than organized miscreants with accesses to the vices of humanity, in my humble and realistic opinion," Swindle chuckled, flat white teeth gleaming as he rifled through his papers. "Constant demand! And with the additional obscurity, that means you can focus more on carrying, that sound about right?"

"Gotta pay the rent for this place somehow," Lockdown said thickly, glaring at the floor and running a hand over his skull, absently digging his nails into his neck.

"Great! What can I sign you up for—three shipments or ten?" Swindle asked brightly, already poised with his ridiculously professional notebook, plucked with much ado from his shabby black (incognito, he preferred) briefcase.

"Somethin' like that."

Swindle, while he could be forcibly oblivious when in the fervor of a pitch, otherwise prided himself on being as sensitive as a bass string, vibrating with whatever was around him and adjusting his tune accordingly. The young man couldn't help but notice the slouching pace Lockdown was keeping, all averted eyes and hazy responses. He frowned, clapping the usually brusque man on the shoulder.

"C'mon, LD. Where's that old enthusiasm for the edgy stuff gone? The excitement, the risk! Where's my old rip-roarin' associate disappeared to, the one who'd fight for more shipments than I could give him? All that old—"

"You say old one more time and I'll punch you in the teeth," Lockdown growled, kneading at the tender bridge of his nose.

"Ahh," Swindle said, too soft and too long and super-saturated with _far_ too much understanding. "Are we feeling a second mid-life crisis coming on, pal? By the looks of your car collection, you're cooking for two now. No reason for a long face if your bed's as full as your garage!"

Even from the beginning—theirs had been a relationship several years and transactions in brewing--Lockdown saw no reason for all this small-talk, all this gleaming fictitious interest. It was obnoxious to the stoic man, but Swindle seemed to enjoy it in some way—not in a personal way, but the arms-dealer thought full-heartedly that he was winning his client over with his constant chatter (and he was so _good_ at it) and nothing pleased him more than his own success. It had nothing to do with the person on the other end.

"Yeah. Got myself a live-in. Couple'a months now," the older man said at length, leaning heavily on his knees, both visible and scuffed through the holes in his jeans.

"With nice taste in bikes to boot—very smooth! Gave me a bit of a scare, though, buddy: I thought I saw lights on the back! As in, the ol' red and blue! A riot, am I right?"

Lockdown's gut dropped at the image of that slick little bike, gold details and police flashers, primly propped a few feet away from his musclecar in the dark garage. It dropped further at what it meant. He nodded, then waited either too long or too short and said, with no idea why, "Yeah. He's a cop."

Swindle dropped his notepad. It clattered and his hands were up, his mouth a perfect O. The silence in the kitchen was only broken by the tick of the clock on the wall, then the hiss of the water-heater. He didn't breathe for a long moment, then air punched in and he suddenly jerked back into motion.

"Woah. _Woah_. Lockdown. If you are, uh, Lockdown," he blabbered, voice growing progressively tighter and brittler, each disbelieving question possessed of a slicing upwards swing in pitch as he bent down to gather his things with numb hands, glancing up again and again and again. "I mean--am I—am I allowed in here? Can I sit down? Am I _welcome_ here anymore?"

He walked to the side of the table where Lockdown was slouched, pushing his purple glasses down his incredibly straight nose and _gaping_.

"Do I _know_ you?"

"Quitcher bitchin', Swindle. He's a good kid. Got no idea."

"This is nuts! _You_! You are _insane_!" Swindle nearly shouted, ugly plastic voice ten times uglier when it had a genuine streak of anger and shock in it. Almost panicked, as he stowed all the evidence away in his bag, then started plucking nervously at his very clothing, like the incredibly tailored suit was incriminating. "You have a police officer in here! A big badge, a copper, a man of the _law_! You're telling me that even when you were racing—"

"Quit the night I ran into him. Ran into him the night I quit. Wasn't part of the deal."

He wasn't a dumb-ass. Was never about to risk a life-sentence just to dick with some kid. His withdrawal, while not official, let him tease Prowl about it, with all the epic rep behind him, but Prowl—at that time an incredibly screwed-up, frigid cop with so many anger issues that it just made Lockdown want to dig out more--would never be able to bust him for it. He wouldn't have been near so cavalier otherwise, nor have managed to actually rope Prowl in.

In some ways, it was a relief to stop racing, but it all came down to money. He had raced for the thrill, yes, but the prizes hadn't only gone to upgrades and paint-jobs. The house—_his_ house--cost a lot. His paycheck had never been enough. He was a grunt at a warehouse, minimum wage. That was bare-bottom, even with his hours: hand-to-mouth.

After the older man quit, his back-drawer savings started drying up, sapped by each rent check. Prowl's shy contributions helped a little, but the settlement from the idiot cop who pegged him in the leg was the only thing that stopped him from making this call sooner.

It wasn't a question of whether he wanted to; it wasn't a question of whether he was in a position to. He needed the money. Badly.

Swindle's hand slapped down on the table, scattering his thoughts and making his blood jump to the top of his white skin.

"Seriously?! You think you can pull off storing smuggled weapons in your shabby little basement? When your cop—what, _cop_ _boyfriend_ could wander down looking for a ladder and open the wrong box? Not likely. Not _likely_."

His jaw was set, a vein standing out in his brown neck; when Lockdown opened his mouth, Swindle exploded.

"Goddamnit, Lockdown, we chose you—_I_ chose you, specifically, personally and with the utmost of _faith_, guy—because you have a _reputation_ for solitude and an out-of-the-way location. You know what that means? That means _security_, and security in such a high-risk and high-profit operation is imperative! The racing was pushing it a bit, mid-life crisis or not, but now you have not only a roommate, but a _cop_ roommate. A cop, in your house! Even _being_ here, my neck is on the line! The slightest goddamn sneeze could break us wide open!"

"C'mon. I need the money," Lockdown growled, eyes fixed on the wall.

"No. Absolutely not. You—you, guy, have made a huge mistake. I don't know what the hell you're playing at, but we are through here." There were several frantic rustles and snaps as Swindle packed his things. "They find the basement, they trace the guns, they find the network, they find _me_, and that is not happening. _No sir_."

"Swindle, it ain't—"

"Wasting my time."

Unable to stand the clattering and Swindle's hunted mutters and the sound of debt rising like a black roar, Lockdown reached forward and slammed the briefcase shut, nearly catching the other man's hand in it. The arms-dealer looked up, glasses askew, and froze at the dangerous look in the older man's reddish eyes. Lockdown's snarl locked his lips.

"I'll get the goddamn guns in the back of the cellar--get a tarp, get the magazine, lock it. _I'll get them through_, fuck it. You know me. I'll get 'em through."

The dark kitchen was completely silent. Very slowly, Swindle drew his hand away and clicked his stack of papers against the table until they fell into place. With his other hand, he opened the briefcase and pushed it back until Lockdown's heavy white hand slid off.

Finally, he dropped his eyes through the contents of it and let out a shaky breath as he reached for his notepad again.

"If your record wasn't so clean, I'd walk out of here," the dealer said icily, scribbling down something and ripping it off of his pad, glaring through his purple shades. "You get that."

"And if you weren't such an asshole, I'd thank you." Lockdown watched as Swindle glanced up from his paper, all too conscious of the other man's bulging white muscles and black-rimmed eyes. "You get that."

He signed where necessary. He was only getting two shipments. A test of sorts, and he was lucky to get that. When it was all said and done, Swindle packed up in earnest, ending with a brusque snap of his suitcase and a final hard look as he yanked it off the table.

"Here's my advice—you're only gonna get it once. Work fast. You'd better use your play-toy up and kick him out with the next load of laundry, _before_ my boys get here. If you don't realize who you're working for and how big this is, that punk is gonna be the end of you."

"Ain't anythin' to end," Lockdown muttered, voice little more than a rasp. Swindle gave an ugly smile that he never saw. The arms-dealer turned on his leather heel.

"With half a million dollars of smuggled weaponry under your stairs, I'd say there'd be enough of a kaboom for a fucking parade."

Swindle gave one last tug at his purple tie and walked out of the tiny kitchen, leaving Lockdown bent in his chair, rubbing at his eyes and feeling his age like a cinderblock on his spine.


	30. Communication Barrier

A/N: This one was gift-wrapped and handed to me by the darling Fayola, so everyone give her props~ Heart you and all your thoughts, honey! An absolute joy to write!

ALSO, I swear I'll be updating all of my fics to M-rated instead of just talking about it. So fix your watch-list/settings accordingly. Don't wanna scare the babies.

* * *

Communication Barrier

* * *

The most pleasant thing about living with someone, Prowl didn't quite think to himself one day, was the rhythm of it all.

The two men had built a nice one around their shifts and mealtimes, usually ending with quiet time on the infamous couch and an indecorous activity or two before bed. There was dinner, there was time for his 'cop homework', there was time to smile slightly when he heard the door, and time to banish it before Lockdown could see it. Despite Lockdown's shifting schedule, there was stability and predictability in spades, and schedule-addicted Prowl couldn't have asked for more from a man who _could_ be called his boyfriend.

Then one evening, mid-January, Lockdown simply didn't come home.

Of course, he did so the next day—two long hours into the next day—and Prowl nearly jumped to his feet when the huge warehouse worker slogged through the front door, bringing with him all the blackness and silence of that odd hour of the morning. His boots were abandoned near the door with a deep double clunk, ink-striped head bowed. The older man only gave a nod to the wide-eyed boy on the couch; the same boy who had sat up for him for so many half-hour TV increments, flicking through channels for nature specials to keep his buzzing mind off the empty bed and the turned-off cell phone across town and any thoughts those two facts provoked.

It was only the first of many late nights to come: somewhere along the line, Lockdown had taken on another job. He grunted something about it when they knocked into each other for breakfast, leaving Prowl frowning after him, but only for a moment. It was a sudden change, but one the older man was perfectly entitled to make if he felt it necessary. It only made Prowl wonder what was 'necessary'; he spent much of the next week an ugly feeling in his gut, considering his next rent payment and how much more he could spare towards expenses.

Still, it didn't seem to be too much of a problem—but, entitled as Lockdown was to a second job and a second paycheck, it wasn't to say the change didn't affect Prowl. It did. Not only was his housemate's schedule twice as unpredictable as before, rarely did it coincide with his own, so he was left either brushing shoulders with Lockdown in the doorway as the other man left, or rousing himself from an uneasy sleep at the sudden dip of a mattress and a masculine noise.

He couldn't help but move close during those quiet times, lured by warmth and the heavy arm that would fall over him if he was lucky, but it wasn't all sweet stolen moments and a want of companionship. It wasn't just loneliness and it wasn't just a break in schedule. It was something far more serious.

Namely, Lockdown hadn't had sex with him in approximately a week and a half, and Prowl was morbidly close to biting his own tongue off in frustration.

He was wrecked. Once the sin-beast was roused, there was no stopping it, or even hushing its plaintive yowls for the sake of his own fragile, decorum-addicted mind. The cringing Catholic was apparently dead and rolling in his grave: Prowl needed sex, he needed it hard, and he needed it yesterday.

The beleaguered young man was so high-strung, someone in the DPD was going to die from a paperclip to the throat if Lockdown didn't quit his damn new job, toss off his jeans upon entry and _do his real job_: debauching him down to a pile of cinders. He was snapping at the entire office, breaking three pencils a day. The house was empty day after day, the bed full only for a few hours, and while Prowl had no imagination to speak of, experience was enough. His sizable library of bed-memories (constantly on loop while he stood astride his bike in the cold air, tapping his foot, tapping his foot and waiting for someone to break the law while he squirmed and nipped at a retreating tongue in his mind) was enough to drive him insane.

Then finally, _finally_, Lockdown's second job was canceled due to weather. Weather from _God._

Prowl still had no idea what said job consisted of, and was only able to pick up the vaguest of hints from the construction-y smells the other man came home coated in, but that Jesus-blessed rainy afternoon found him stiffly propped against the couch, half asleep with his thick, sculpted legs spread-eagled. Prowl hated himself for noticing that last part, but the fact remained that Lockdown was _in one place_ and he was _in that same place_ and they weren't yet _tangled on the couch and screaming and breaking nearby objects_ and that was a_ very large problem_.

Even after a few months of being in a highly sexual relationship, the young man was still horribly unsure of how to proceed--or how to bait a man who had never before needed any more prompting than the sight of his sprightly housemate bending over the sink or reclining or simply _breathing_. Still, the way Lockdown was sitting spoke of back-pains and discomfort, and it didn't seem quite right to jump into his lap naked with no warning. Prowl, functioning off of some ugly mixture of stereotypes and true concern for his housemate, went over and began to rub his broad white shoulders. After waking up with a start, Lockdown groaned and eased his head back as Prowl's strong fingers dug into his knotted muscles, relaxing into the touch.

Unfortunately, Lockdown was vocal. Quite vocal. Always had been, especially when he was enjoying something.

"Aw, yeah… _fuck_ yes. Yeah, darlin'. Aw, fuck."

Maybe it was the way he grit his teeth, or the gravelly groans, or the grunts, or the language, or simply the man pressing against his hands, but Prowl was suddenly a tad hot in the face. And the… everywhere. Sex-deprived mind (lumpofhormones) immediately putting those sounds to better use _elsewhere_, Prowl was at least able to get Lockdown to close his eyes and stop moaning before he readjusted his constrictive khaki pants at the speed of light and sat down beside him.

First, he ran a few fingers up and down Lockdown's leg, feeling like he was prodding at a sleeping giant. When that garnered no reaction but a huff, like that of someone chasing a fly away, Prowl forced himself to move farther up his housemate's white body, raking his fingers over the front of his shirt and pressing close to his masculine scent, cheek to his sleeve. One hand toyed with the tight skin at the top of his jeans, dearly wanting to slip lower. He was nearly giddy to be so near another male—his male—and could nearly taste the sweat and the scraping contact and the utter wildness that he had been craving like food for days.

Then he looked up, and his hazy, expectant expression faded instantly: finally roused, Lockdown was regarding him in nothing but confusion, one inked brow cocked.

"Hell're you doin'?" he mumbled at last, squinting down like he'd found a strange animal in his lap.

Prowl opened his mouth, froze, then closed it, bowing his head and muttering:

"Nothing."

Lockdown did little more than scratch his head when his housemate skulked off red-cheeked and defeated, then drifted back to sleep with considerably looser shoulders.

* * *

That night, it was on.

Prowl made sure he was in bed before Lockdown came home from _any_ of his possible shifts, and he made sure he was stripped down to nothing. The navy sheets were painstakingly shoved down to properly display his silky back and behind and the dark hair over his shoulders as he read in the lamplight—or rather, kept the book open and tried not to look back at every sound, feeling both daring and excruciatingly stupid. And desperate. If there was a God, he was surely averting his eyes for sheer embarrassment.

When Lockdown came in, however, there was absolutely no pause between the steady clomp of his feet and the squeak of the mattress. There was a _negative_ pause between the squeak and the switch to heavy breathing, which made Prowl's gut drop and his last nerve snap. Officially insane, the young man tossed the book to the ground and scrambled over to the dead weight on the other side of the mattress, shaking Lockdown by the shoulders.

"Lockdown. Please," he whispered tensely, shaking harder when the man just huffed and tried to roll over. "Lockdown."

Lockdown finally opened his eyes, jerking slightly to see Prowl bending over him in the dark, pretty eyes wide. He shook his head and rubbed his face a little, grunting.

"What."

"_Please_."

That really got his eyes open. The kid sounded ready to cry. Prowl stared and he stared back, waiting for that single gasped word to evolve into something lame and deservedly Prowlish, like a reminder to take out the recycling or to brush his teeth before bed. Nothing happened: in fact, Prowl seemed to choke on whatever he had to say, lip disappearing under his teeth.

Then a hand started fiddling nervously at his bare chest, working the sheets down inch by inch, and it all clicked in the older man's mind—Prowl's birthday suit, the sidle-up that afternoon, the weird looks. Lockdown let out a booming laugh, half-clutching at his sore _everything_. Prowl perked up too akin to a desperate puppy when Lockdown squeezed his behind fondly then settled back onto the pillows with an almost resigned sigh.

"Fine. You'll hafta do all the work, though. M'beat."

Prowl was a little sloppy when excited, admittedly, but the teeth-crashing kiss evolved into a real one with the addition of a mammoth, callused hand on his cheek to rein him in. He kissed like he'd never kissed before, letting the other know how _happy_ he was just to be given the chance after so many days of nothing. After a second, however, when Lockdown didn't move to, er, _further_ things, Prowl sat back on his haunches, still pressing noses with him in the dark room.

"What—ah. What do you mean?" he asked. He was trying not to sound too silly, distracted as he was by the feel of the other man's invisible stubble against his chin. He felt like a cat against cat-nip. "How can one do all the work?"

His mouth only puckered a little when Lockdown guffawed again and dug his fingers into the young man's loose hair—a fine substitute for slapping his own forehead.

"Jesus Jiminy Christ, gimme a pencil. I'll draw ya a diagram and color-code it."

Prowl muttered something and tugged at his arm, cheeks surely red at his drawl, but Lockdown groped for the bedside table as if he had a legal pad and protractor waiting.

"Naw, really, you'll need one. This shit's complicated. Y'usually need an engineer to oversee ya but I been doin' it long enough, figure it's safe. Might wanna keep a fire-extinguisher nearby, though, just in case."

"_Stop--talking_! Goddamn you!"

Prowl practically pounced on him with his teeth bared (unwittingly putting himself in the perfect position) but the run-in taught Lockdown a thing or two. Like, you could take the kid out of Catholicism, but beyond that it was a hard run and a lot of ugly explanations that made said ex-Catholic's face warp in near-horrified disbelief. Considering that Prowl would have agreed to anything short of genocide to soothe his nerves, though, it was all-too easy to forget about the indignity of it a half an hour later, once he was curled under a strong arm and shivering happily alongside his completely exhausted beau.

It took Lockdown mere seconds to fall asleep with that warm, trusting body against him, but seconds was enough to feel the guilt settle in his gut like a bell-iron, weighing his sleep into black, black space.


	31. Lie

* * *

Lie

* * *

One ordinary Thursday night found Prowl, moments ago in a deep sleep, wide-eyed and perfectly awake for no logical reason.

At least, he thought it was causeless, until he realized that the bed was still empty. He looked at the clock—a blocky green three am—then exhaled into his pillow, brow creasing. Exhaustion rolled through him, only exacerbated by the chilly state of the sheets. Part of him always held onto consciousness until there was a deep dent beside him in the mattress, and that made for unsatisfying sleep.

Frowning, Prowl made to roll over and relax, but his skin contracted briefly when he heard a thump from somewhere in the house. If he raised his head, it was only for a moment: he stilled and waited for what was presumably Lockdown to stop banging around in the kitchen and come to bed. But the noises were scattered, muffled and then—the click of a door, a raspy scrape. Not at all the rattle of a spoon against a cereal bowl or the drone of the TV.

Then something heavy rustled one-two-three steps outside the window, the sound only intensified by the pure black beyond the shades, and another thump came from the wrong side of the house.

The brutal, dislocated feeling of _being surrounded_ hit Prowl all at once, making the hair stand up on his neck. The wood of the house suddenly felt hollow, permeable and the dark pressed in, sense of safety fleeing the bedroom in one cold rush.

The person beyond the bedroom door, in the house, wasn't Lockdown. Just from the weight, the creak of the building, it was unfamiliar. It wasn't the sound of someone walking around in their own home, but an intruder avoiding faulty floorboards.

Prowl immediately shifted to his knees on the bed, hyper-conscious of even the creaks of the springs as he stared around in the black bedroom, mechanically evaluating the bluntness and heft of everything from scattered books and socks. His pistol wasn't in the house, much less the bedroom. His thoughts slammed against the dead-end—he wouldn't go into this with just his bare hands, and certainly not if there were more men outside.

At last, heart pounding, he rolled soundlessly over to Lockdown's side of the bed, palming the metal desk-lamp, un-screwing the papery lampshade with but a few slips of his numb fingers and easing the cord from the wall. The weight of the base was of little comfort; he still had to take a deep, soundless breath before sliding over to the bedroom door and opening it, clenching his eyes shut when the lock stuck like always. Every sound ricocheted through his veins, making his pulse jump.

He tried to calm himself, of course, but that was for sun-lit dojos with white tile floors. Not adrenaline and fear and the unknown. Still, he kept his weapon tight in his hands and he didn't shake in the slightest.

Once the narrow, sheltering hallway ended, he felt reluctant to step out into the living room where the easy chair and couch waited, shadow-clotted and threatening. It was a hauntingly unfamiliar landscape, suddenly, every silent corner heavy with the possibility of a hard human body, vibrating with intent to harm. He crept past the kitchen, ears burning, footsteps creaking; luckily, his heart was growing tired of its hectic pounding and slowing into something far more conducive to self-defense. Prowl felt something close to a preternatural calm settle over him, and he didn't have to wait long to use it.

When he opened the door to the screened-in porch and reached into the dark for a hand-hold—his feet always caught on the raised step—someone's fist fastened around his stick-thin arm.

It was almost a law of physics, the way Prowl pulled against the hold, using the momentum to lunge forward and bring the lamp-base slamming into the huge man's head. Or it should have been his head, if the intruder hadn't raised his arm to block the blow and force him backwards, cursing in a way both very loud and very familiar.

"Christ, kid!"

Almost crying out, Prowl lost his balance and toppled into the wall, half from the shock of attacking Lockdown and half from the overload of adrenaline currently making his very toes tremble. He leaned there for but a second before the older man—visible as milky shadow and a smooth skull once the fear-spots cleared from Prowls eyes—pulled him upright, and the warmth of Lockdown's callused hands cupping his bare upper arms was the most holy kind of grounding sensation in the universe.

Prowl fought the urge to simply slump against his broad chest, noting only hazily that his housemate was sparing one hand to rub at the arm that he had slammed the lamp into. Apparently he was a hard hitter. That was good.

"What are… you _doing_?" Prowl demanded at last, voice thin and aggrieved. It was stupid, yes, but all he could come up with. In his mind, Lockdown belonged in bed or at work, not wandering around the porch while robbers skulked outside—which was, by the way, _not_ the proper course of action for a mounting home invasion.

"I need permission to walk around in my house?" the older man growled pointedly, then shook his head. Turning and releasing the rumpled young man, he glared off into the ghostly blue of the screened-in windows, white face fierce. "Thought I heard somethin'."

Prowl's heart jumped once, and then almost settled. Lockdown had heard it as well. He wasn't imagining things—and now he had a large, intimidating fighter to help defend the house. He nodded faintly, just barely beginning to feel the cold of a deep January night gnaw at his skin as the panicked flush retreated.

"Indeed. Something… from outside. I suspected someone was in the house."

Lockdown grunted, like it was an ugly thought he'd shared as well. Prowl shifted his (very tight) grip on the lamp-base and drifted closer to the large man, still more spooked than he cared to admit. He had _distinctly_ heard footsteps outside, even though all seemed calm. For all his training, he would feel most comfortable if they swept all the most obvious corners before settling down into sleep with their necks exposed.

"Perhaps… we should check."

"Already did. Empty." Lockdown waved his hand, reddish eyes still locked on the cold blue three-am field that stood next to the house. "Basement's clear, too."

"You have a basement?" Prowl asked blankly. He was having trouble extending his consciousness outside of the black, freezing porch, much less a secret portion of the house he had never seen before.

"Locked, now," he grunted, then shook his head again and exhaled as he moved over to the porch door and locked it, testing it with a jiggle. "Think animals are gettin' in. No more'a that."

"Animals," Prowl repeated densely after a moment, not at all catching the older man's air of finality. This—whatever this was—did not feel over. His narrowed eyes scanned the frozen blue windows, consciousness still locked into his grip on the lamp and the vibrating silence of the house.

Huffing a little, Lockdown came back and took hold of his waist, prying the make-shift weapon from his housemate's cold fingers with his other hand. The young man wouldn't quite let go until Lockdown startled him—namely with a habitual but functional squeeze of his behind. It loosed his fingers like a dream and left him staring, wide-eyed, at Lockdown, who managed a terse smirk.

"Yer shift's over, ninjacop. I got enough bruises to deal with without you swingin' lamps around. Get'cher ass back to bed."

The assurance was wired into his gruff tone: it would be fine. The house was safe and dawn would break in three hours and make the couch and chairs and shadowy kitchen recognizable again. A simple step forward and the feeling of Lockdown's rough t-shirt against his fingertips—and the hard chest underneath, and his steady breaths—dissolved the last of the anxiety from his gut and Prowl finally relaxed.

"Be in in a minute. Go on, darlin'."

Lockdown leaned forward and pecked him on the warm, tender part of his neck underneath his ear; Prowl's eyes immediately closed, sense of safety returning ten-fold.

There was a certain tension in the way he pushed Prowl in the small of his back, urging him towards the bedroom, but with the adrenaline draining from his muscles, Prowl found himself too tired to think much of it. He curled back underneath the chilly covers and tried to wait, unknowing that Lockdown was slumped on the couch with a hand over his eyes, TV turned up high to cover the sound of two empty black trucks retreating onto the highway.


	32. Crash

A/N: You have to understand the forces that are warring in LD at the moment, along with the stress of being very overworked. Telling Prowl to leave outright might seem more painful than being an ass and having the kid make the decision to leave on his own. In some small way, he's taking Swindle's advice to heart.

Guhhhhjesuschristhardtowrite. Idea gift-wrapped for me by my soulmate Eno: she always gives me fantastic material 15 chapters beforehand, and I go WHER'M I GONNA USE THIS, BOO? And then it's perfect.

* * *

Crash

* * *

The problem with Prowl (as there was very often a problem) was that he was a perfectionist.

Whenever the strict young man began something, be it a report or a skill, he had to finish it and finish it correctly. When it was a long-term task, such as the cooking he set to nearly every night, he was incapable of settling for mediocrity. His dedication mounted to the point where their first pathetic spaghetti meal (canned sauce and packaged noodles and spice in a bottle) evolved with marvelous intensity until Prowl was experimenting with chutneys. He had always appreciated good food, no doubt, but had been forced to pick around meat or choose from limited vegetarian options, and he loved the freedom that crafting his own meals gave him.

Lockdown did not. Appreciate, that is. Any of it. At all.

The problem that made Prowl's problem worse was the two men's disparate needs. Prowl ate very lightly. Lockdown could shovel down a rack of beef in one sitting, and needed yet more fuel for his double-shifts than it seemed his huge white body could even hold. While he was rarely home for dinner anymore, he still liked biscuits and gravy. Vegetarian ceviche with extra lime juice was not biscuits and gravy.

"Oh god, this ain't _food_."

Drawn into the kitchen by the sound of something sizzling, Lockdown glared at the cluttered countertop and the skinny cop who didn't even look up from his chopping. The material in the pan was nearly unidentifiable, but the older man could tell it was trash already by the fact the balsamic vinegar was out, which he hated with a passion. His mood, already bad, got worse.

Lockdown had been a very good boy and only ordered take-out twice since Prowl's dinners started getting more and more like brightly colored and strangely spiced obstacle courses and less like warm, much-needed nourishment. Now he couldn't help but lumber to the phone on the counter, hardly even looking at the speed-dial numbers before pressing for one of his seven favorite greasy spoons. The ring sounded different, and it stopped almost immediately—and whoever picked up was not Haleback's barbeque.

"Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, please select your number from the—"

"What the hell is this?" Lockdown demanded, holding the phone away and glaring at it, then at his housemate. "What happened to my speed dials?"

Never halting his preparations, Prowl frowned slightly as he picked out a withered piece of cilantro from his pile, tossing it aside.

"I thought you might want a bit of support on your quest toward sobriety."

Prowl had almost forgotten about that bit of cheekiness he committed a few weeks back. It was impossible to miss Lockdown's deep mutter as he jabbed at the rest of the speed-dials, each time receiving a cool female voice and a pre-recorded menu, all for facilities that assisted with various vices. A support-group for nymphomaniacs was speed dial number five, which made the younger man smirk slightly to himself.

The striking clang of the house phone being hung up with force, however, made Prowl look up, eyes wide. He turned, expecting mild annoyance at best and genuine grumpiness at worst, but was nearly stopped cold by the fury radiating from the other man. Lockdown's black-inked eyes were narrowed, lip curling.

"What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

Suddenly, Prowl's dry, arrogant idea of a joke seemed like a very bad idea as well as being nothing like a joke.

"You drink far more than the average man," Prowl managed after a moment, turning away from Lockdown's knotted muscles and clenched fists and busying himself with his chopping again. "I would assume it's beginning to have an impact on your health, and I was—"

"There's a fuckin' line between havin' a beer and sayin' I'm a drunk, you snotty little fucker."

It almost knocked the breath out of him. Mouth dry, Prowl turned again to look at the older man with wide eyes. His expression—that of stung disbelief—wasn't long in lasting.

"And there's a finer line between disagreeing with me and insulting me," Prowl grit out, suddenly cold all over. The nauseating sensation only worsened when Lockdown sneered at him and cursed again.

"What the hell do you want from me, kid? Hidin' my cigars last week, tossin' my good food, this shit here—what the hell do you _want_? 'Cos you've gotta want somethin', and I'd rather know what before you just fuckin' take it."

Prowl was able to do little more than stare at his half-cooked meal, bones only just beginning to shake. He had slipped the cigars into a random drawer because he heard Lockdown coughing in a terrible way and was determined to make the man's efforts to commit suicide via tar a little more difficult. The beef jerky—and several other packets of food with lethal sodium contents—were recalled by the food companies due to a manufacturing error. It was the sensible thing to do.

The young man drew a shaky breath, uncertain with what he was going to do with it, and was saved the trouble by Lockdown stalking right up beside him, fist coming down hard on the counter and making him drop his knife with a clatter.

"If you think you're gonna clean me up, _fix_ me into some little straight-edge mini-you? You're wronger than you know. What gives you the right to stick your nose in my business, fuck with my house?"

Prowl felt as though he was being physically struck. It only took accusations to make him unravel, make him lose those classic porcelain nerves. His blood turned foamy and hot from the sudden _fear_ impulse of those sharp words, not because of what they were but who they were coming from.

This Lockdown was a man he'd never seen before. He'd been more on edge lately—hardly having enough time to sleep, let alone relax before putting on those heavy boots again for four weeks now--but this was the most violent snap Prowl had ever seen and _he_ was the cause. The ugly tension in the other man almost made his hands shake, mere proximity making his heart pound because he knew his next sentence would be a lie.

"I am not attempting to _fix_ you. I was thinking of your health. Moreso, you are under no obligation to eat what I prepare," Prowl said somewhere outside of himself, tongue numb and tone defensively cold: the frantic nonsense say-anything-to-make-it-quiet-down cold. He picked up his knife again, swallowing hard. "It's not as if you haven't forced your ways on me since I—"

"I haven't forced you to do a goddamn thing since you parked your ass here!" Lockdown roared. His big hands unclenched only to gesture violently at the small, dark house, every move like a checked slap. "If you notice, you walk into it every time: _you_ started doin dinner, _you_ picked up the scrubber and rearranged my entire fuckin' bathroom cabinet and if you turned up your nose and stopped tomorrow, I wouldn't give a shit! I don't expect shit from you and if I did, you'd get your panties in a bunch! I know at least that much, so where've you been and what the _hell_ do you think you're doin' here?"

The sharp movements and the volume would have been enough to break him down, make him admit to anything, but Lockdown grabbed the sleeve of his sweater, knife and all, and yanked him around, glaring hard into his wide eyes.

"All I want is to be able to do what I want, and it _ain't much_—and if you don't like the way I do things, kid, you can get the fuck out."

Following the complete halt of his heart, his mind shut down in kind, leaving Prowl suspended in a dangerously silent kitchen.

"I'm—I—"

_Oh God_, he wanted to whisper, _oh God, no_. He was too stunned to speak, to justify, casting about for some sort of word like _so sorry_ that didn't seem to be presenting itself (or promising to _work_ against the dark glare pinning him to the counter, provoking a fear only a smidgen less harsh than that of actually being forced to leave this haven, this home). It seemed like he spent an eon staring into Lockdown's black-marked face before he was capable of swallowing—and saving everything with one stupid word.

"Potatoes."

"What?"

It was nearly a growl, and that was nothing to the look it came with, but he was too scared to feel anymore fear.

"Potatoes," Prowl repeated, soft and strange like it was his last hope on earth. "I can replace… the jiccama with potatoes."

When Lockdown didn't say anything, Prowl took the recipe book with his free hand and laid it out flat in front of his housemate, heart practically in his throat; he moved stiffly like one would in front of a wild animal that could spring at any moment. His fingers slid up to underline where the salad was, the one he had been making before. Lockdown glared down at it then looked back up, expression dangerously dubious.

"Anything you don't… recognize, I can find something to replace it with. We can make the recipe together. Simplify it. To make sure you… like the taste."

His tone was blank, careful, and not the smallest bit pleading. The young man watched nervously as Lockdown's reddish eyes scanned the list fruitlessly: it was too far away without his glasses. Then he snatched the book up, almost as if to throw it down or use it to beat Prowl out of the house, but he only squinted at the ingredients, tattooed face warping.

"Fine," he finally muttered, fingers going slack around Prowl's sweater. When the big man didn't move, eyes safely mowing through the ingredients list for foreign entities, Prowl finally breathed out and moved to read over his shoulder, too aware of the solid inch between them and too scared yet to broach it. When Lockdown pointed and made a noise, Prowl said he had some carrots, Lockdown nodded and squinted again, and so it went.

Prowl's menu changed from that day forth, even if the two ended up ordering pizza that night, after Prowl tossed the remnants of his ideologically beautiful and utterly disgusting salad into the trash.

They retreated to the living room, but the watching-tv-silence was not the usual watching-tv-silence and Prowl wasn't forgiven and he knew it and nobody's opinion of him had ever mattered so much. The young man had never before felt the kind of heart-rending, skin-prickling anxiety (nor quite made the stiff-to-pliant distinction between simply kissing someone and having that kiss returned) as he did when Lockdown, horribly quiet for over an hour, stooped for another slice of jalapeno-laden pepperoni and Prowl impulsively and a little desperately reached up and caught the older man in a kiss.

He had to wait three agonizing seconds of stiff lips, all spent wondering fearfully if he should just jerk away and act like it had never happened and pack his things. Then, Lockdown ceased abiding him and actually pushed back. A grudging growl rumbled out of the big man, increasing into a purr when Prowl jumped onto the couch and promptly ripped his own clothes off. Make-up sex, he learned, was a little rough, happened in strange places (on his back on the coffee table?) and often tasted of pizza, but was otherwise worth it. Very worth it, if just for the feeling of Lockdown's big hand on his naked back.

Still, as they lay dozing on the couch afterward, nothing could soothe his battered heart but contact. Prowl had argued before, certainly, with his parents and others, but never had it wrenched at his insides like this. Their verbal crash stayed acidic under his tight skin, making his adrenaline go crazy remembering a certain phrase or threat even as Lockdown's heart slowed to a sated crawl under his cheek.

Prowl couldn't help but keep his arms locked tightly around the older man's scarred barrel chest, feeling as though he were holding onto something more than skin—and that something was slipping away.


	33. Return

A/N: Yeah, remember that phonecall all the way back from Christmas? Yeah.

God I hate me.

* * *

Return

* * *

Lost in the orderly scrawl of his handwriting, Prowl was busy hand-copying one of his ticket receipts from the previous night's patrol when the man stepped in front of his desk.

He felt no prickle of trepidation, as Optimus had been dropping by more often and Sentinel hadn't come to harass him since the Sumdac Tower case. The dark blue slacks in his periphery didn't match either of their usual wardrobes, but neither was Prowl above the occasional visit from their Magnus. Finishing his line, the young officer set the pen down and looked up. Instantly, his eyes widened.

In front of him, black hair combed back and streaked with cold silver, stood his father.

"Sir."

Prowl stood up so quickly the chair screeched backwards, hands snapping to his sides. His father's stony expression did not change; a few nearby officers looked over at the noise, faces quizzical. Prowl simply tried to meet his father's dark, narrowed eyes, praying his rigid posture didn't betray the hostility or the shock he felt to see the other man in this business environment. The one place he had hoped would remain safe.

Even as the stately Japanese man stood in front of him, tie perfectly knotted above his habitual navy suit like a hard photo-copy of their family portrait, Prowl hoped it wasn't real. He would have given anything to have his father come in, see him at his pathetic cubicle—he never thought about his cubicle as anything but functional and suitable, but when his father stepped foot into the office it shrank and rotted to _pathetic_—nod with deep disappointment in his eyes and walk off. But he stayed.

He stayed, and he waited silently until Prowl bent slightly at the waist and turned to walk deeper into the DPD.

A few minutes later both were seated in an unused meeting room. Prowl got his father a cup of water. The older man offered only a nod as he took it and hadn't touched it since. Prowl fought not to tangle his fingers against the wood as the silence stretched on, doubly impenetrable with the empty navy-padded chairs lining the sides of the long table and his father staring out of a window that looked out on a sunny Detroit street.

When Prowl asked his reason for being in Detroit, he received the answer. Business.

Prowl nodded. Logical. Only convenience would bring his father anywhere near him.

After a few more minutes of cold silence, Prowl—emboldened by the three-year stretch in which the man hadn't been involved in his life, desperate to see his father _out_ before he could ruin any more of the station by mere presence—began to ask his specific reason for coming to see him. Before he could speak, his father breathed in deeply and set the cup down on the table.

"Why don't you have a wife yet?"

Prowl simply stared. His father turned the chair around, and his gut finally contracted. The coldness—and the expectation--of the other man's dark eyes was enough to make his head drop.

"I have several reasons, none of which will satisfy you," Prowl said at length, mouth numb.

"Being aware of your own excuses is a step, not a solution," his father returned coldly, watching his only son stare blankly at the table, pick at his shirtsleeves, hunch over. Prowl's long tied-up hair fell over his shoulder. No matter how he shrank further and tucked it back, out of sight, his father's frown deepened as it always had. "You are almost twenty-four. Are you even in a relationship?"

This man did not belong in his life.

That was the officer's first reaction: get out, get out, _get him out_. Push him out, shut him out, get up and leave Detroit just to get out of range. His very presence was immovable, suffocating, just as it had always been, any hope of intelligent autonomy crushed under his foot.

Instantly, with those few words, Prowl felt the threat to the small, shy happiness he had created in the time since he had escaped his house. He had fought it at first, then fallen into it and cursed himself every inch of the way, but it was _his_, and his father's iron standards drilled inwards towards that chrysalis, unyielding and uncaring. He could feel his very heart swell and harden, preparing for impact; something in Prowl riled, prepared to fight for his safety, but only briefly.

After eighteen years of eating silently under Dai's eyes, obedience was beaten in. He had to think about Lockdown.

But because his father was in front of him, it wasn't just Lockdown: it was Lockdown and nausea. Trained nausea and fear and disgust he hadn't allowed himself to think about (hadn't allowed himself to _knee-jerk_), only natural now that the man across the table was judging him, forcing him to relearn every definition of _wrong_ that he had spent months unlearning. Only natural, when the young man thought about what he would _do_ if he knew.

Unnatural.

With that word, Prowl could feel some sort of barrier break and knew that the flood, destroying all the tender saplings he had built in the dam's shadow, would stain him for a long, long time.

"No. I am not in a relationship," he said, voice soft.

He closed his eyes against the shame as he cauterized that portion of himself, taking with it the combined smell of cologne and a doughy leather couch and the safety of a big white hand on his bare back. All of it rotted, suddenly indecent and perverted in front of this hard man. His center shook and all but crumbled.

"Of any sort."

Dai nodded.

"And you were recently demoted."

"Yes, sir."

His father did not tap his fingers on the blank table, simply because he was pitiless efficiency incarnate. Instead, he stared for a moment more before rising with the rustle of a stiffly-starched suit and moved to the window, allowing his son only his sun-yellowed profile, both grim and resolved.

"I will be honest with you. Currently and for the foreseeable future, you are a considerable disappointment to me, Prowl."

_I was born a disappointment to you_, part of Prowl wanted to say, but if he said it, it would be a dangerous whisper and everything after would be a scream. He was in the station; he couldn't raise his voice in the station, the blue carpet and plaster walls and suited officers wouldn't allow it. So the young man put his hand over his mouth to stop the _gush _and his father continued as though he were as plastic as one of the chairs.

"I have had many years to accept it. You have your life, however much I disagree with it, and I have left you to it. I gave you freedom to pursue your course as you saw fit, wasting years of private education to become a public servant of the lowest degree. You were under obligation to at least attempt to follow me in business; you made no attempt. I allowed it. I allowed many things I should not have, and I own these mistakes as I see you today."

The distance between them, at first two meters and a chair, was suddenly _how long this had been coming_. Somewhere, Prowl knew that no one should ever be talked to this way, like they were a bad investment, but any sense of right and wrong _and success and failure_ was encapsulated in his father, who finally turned and clasped his hands behind his back, thick brows knotted.

"I will not, however, allow you to become a disappointment to my family," he said, deep voice numbing Prowl further. "I have arranged a mi-ai meeting for you with a Detroit-based nakodo."

"_What_?"

The words—it took a moment to remember. It wasn't at all due to his stint in studying Japanese, both messy and brief and perhaps the real beginning of this man's scorn for him, but something further. Something that made his skin tighten over his suddenly cold blood. All of it drained to his feet when he looked up at the man in front of him, who returned that stare unwaveringly.

Nakodo was a euphemism for a Japanese match-maker.

"You can't ask this of me," Prowl not-insisted, tone more pleading than forceful.

"I have every right to ask it of you," Dai replied flatly, chin raising a notch. "You are my son."

The man owned his every skin-cell even as he would dump his son as refuse--even as he did not _want_ Prowl, neither the person he was nor the person he became when left to his own devices, his own passions. Panic boiled up inside the young man who was suddenly crouching in his chair as though hunted, fingers white over his mouth. Fear of exposure, fear of being _bartered_ off and forced into a life he could not live, finally forced its way out.

"No. Absolut—no. I refuse," Prowl grit out, shaking his head sharply. Every skin-cell his father claimed rioted against it, screaming their independence. He was his own.

"Then you refuse me," his father stated, voice maddeningly monotone. Informative. He didn't even spare a hand-gesture. "Myself, my home, and any future assistance I may give you."

Silence. An empty meeting room had never _been_ so silent. It was so curt—and with it, the knife was poised at the thread that held Prowl to his parents. He never called them, never relied on them for anything, and indeed spent most of his waking life trying not to think about them, but the idea of being totally seared from their lives?

He knew his father meant every word. He would be dead to Dai if he did not do this. A bad investment, cut. He would remain cut if he were bleeding out on the street. _Mother_ some desperate dislocated part of him said, but his helpless mother lived by his father: there would be but a stunned half-word, then obedient silence. It was not in her to defy him. It had never been.

But to give in?

"Leave." Prowl hardly heard himself say it, the first time. His senses were whiting out, mental rigor mortis locking his synapses. The second time, the whole of his battered body went into it, throat clenching painfully. "_Leave_."

He heard the flick of the business card on the table, then the snap of the door. It was that sound—or the short, featureless, insulating silence afterward—that let his knees give. Prowl sagged in his chair and pushed a hand to his eyes, fighting slowly not to choke as his two lives crashed. When the door opened again, the child didn't move, frozen in the void his father left.

Optimus' warm hand came down on Prowl's shoulder and he was out the door in the next moment, eyes blurring with weakness that would never make it past his knuckles.


	34. Sin

A/N: Prowl is very cynical: sorry to all the practicing (and well-adjusted) Catholics out there. To those same Catholics, I'm sorry if I get some of this theology/ritual wrong (thanks to SwipeatronSparks and my mama for keeping it from being TOO wrong), but IT'S THE FUTURE WOOOO. Maybe ritual has changed a teeny bit?

And priests are unbearably nosy (when properly tipped off by evil fathers). Right.

* * *

Sin

* * *

He survived by staying silent.

The next few days at work were conducted with a minimum of words and blank nods; Prowl was unable to manage much more with his mind fixed on a small square of cardstock emblazoned with Helvetica font and hiragana. He felt like he was radiating white noise, the product of his twisting gut. The mere fact that his father was still in the city somewhere, hidden by the curtains of a hotel, made him feel ill.

Optimus tried to see him twice. Perhaps because he had been the one to lead the older man behind the front desk at his request, he felt somehow responsible for the younger officer's state. With each approach, Prowl murmured something meaningless and returned to his cubicle, leaving his Prime and former housemate standing in a hallway with his hands trapped helplessly in his pockets.

Lockdown showed no sign of noticing his quietness save a single strange look when Prowl jerked at the sound of the TV turning on. The officer sat with the older man a moment more with a trucker rally blaring dumbly in front of him, and the sick feeling that had been drifting around his unprotected organs (and the rickety house, his _home_) finally took root and grew into something slimy and cold. Prowl retreated to the bedroom with his head low. He clenched his eyes shut and breathed heavily when he heard the creak of the door, for once hoping for nothing more than the rustle of sheets.

He could not tell Lockdown. That much was fact.

Other options—other people—crossed his mind. Places where he had felt safe. Yoketron was one, but despite the grace—no, because of that limitless grace, he would have to explain _everything_ and that was too much to reveal to his sensei. It was too messy, too painful, and the chance, no matter how slight, that the ancient man might turn away from him for the same reason his father would… the last of him would crumble.

There was only one person who didn't have to be informed of anything and yet wouldn't invade without being asked—but it was still embarrassing, how he had to look her up in the phonebook.

"Hello?"

Torque answered after a few rings, her earrings presumably tinkling against the receiver. Prowl realized he hadn't heard her voice in what seemed like quite a while: at that moment, it sounded like liquid comfort. Someone willing to _speak_. Even so, his heart shot into his throat.

"Hello. I was…" Prowl swallowed; he was incapable of small talk. Finally, he blurted, "How are you?"

"Prowl? Is that you?" the older woman asked after a moment, then, far more amused, "How on earth did you get my number?"

"I asked Lockdown," Prowl lied, then cleared his throat in the resulting silence. The young officer propped his head in his hands; he realized he couldn't do this over the phone as she waited expectantly for _what was up_. He wet his lips. "I was… I would like to know if you are available in the next two-to-four days. For a meal of some kind. Preferably mid-day, although evening is negotiable."

"Christ, Prowl, you make it sound so _fun_," came her drawl, and Prowl realized for the first time how long it had been since he had laughed at anything.

Only a week or two, at most, definitely since Lockdown had begun his new job. How much had he changed, that he felt that span distinctly when the previous _him_ would have been lucky to laugh at all? Tense and exhausted as he was, his mouth didn't even twitch, but with Torque talking, the pressure in his chest almost went away. He could get this out to someone, someone who _understood_, and stop it from burning through his skull—but then she sighed heavily, voice dropping.

"I'd love to, but… I'm so sorry, my car's gone kaput. I'm in a bit of a bad way right now so I haven't been out much. Would it be okay if we move it over to next week, when I _hopefully_ have wheels again? I'd ask to be ferried around but that bike of yours would only hold half my ass. That's okay, right? That works for you?"

"Yes. Of course," he forced himself to say. He was so shocked he didn't monitor his voice for blankness or fear, so the words sounded as mechanical as they were. He sat in the chilly house and felt the last of his hope slither out of his hands. Cathartic or no, talking to her would never have truly solved anything: his father was still his father. The deal and the terms would change no more than he could change the blood in his body.

In the end, as in the beginning, he was on his own.

"Honey, are you alright?" Torque asked from half the city away, womanly voice soft enough to kill.

"Yes. I am fine," Prowl said from somewhere outside himself, thumb already on the end-call button and lead in his gut. He breathed out shakily and shook his head, murmuring something like 'I apologize for troubling you'. He hung up before she could respond, or mention next week again… which would be too late.

He had to go.

No matter how he reasoned with himself (or simply sat and tried to think, mind knotting tighter and tighter under the pressure), it was inescapable. He had no choice but to go to the nakodo. Parents were parents, regardless of whether they didn't act like parents—regardless of what they demanded. The chance of being in a life-threatening situation without anyone to fall back on was too much to face… and as much as he vehemently disagreed with the concept of matchmakers in general, his only obligation was to _attend_ the mi-ai meeting. He would make certain Dai did not extend those terms.

"I will do it."

It was enough of a battle to sit on the couch, pick up his cell phone and actually access the name _Dai Atlas_, but his personal surrender was received with little more than stern silence. Then:

"You will go to confession first."

Prowl nearly dropped the phone, world once more rocking in shock.

"No. What—_why_?"

"If you comply, Father will notify me and I will make a contribution to your bank account." Dai paused. "Demotions are not only a reduction in rank. Your mother informed me of your lowered salary."

The man said it as if it were some sort of memo-system--like _his_ mother hadn't murmured it at the dead-silent dinner table, head bowed under his hard eye. Impossible slammed down on top of inescapable, only compounding his lethal confusion; Prowl's hand drifted up and pushed through his loose hair, grabbing and pulling hard enough to feel his scalp prickle. To ground himself, even as his mouth hung open.

"You are… bribing me to go to confession?"

"I am making certain you go," his father corrected him curtly. "I am as concerned for the state of your soul as your lacking financial situation. Do this, attend the meeting, and I will consider all expectations met."

Prowl would have taken hours, perhaps days to consider this broach of the deal, but with his father waiting silently on the other line, he couldn't hide his patchy breathing for long. Once more, he retreated to his cramping stomach and his brainstem: remove the threat.

"Yes," Prowl grit out, if just to get the man away again. Get him out of _his_ city, back to Boston. He leaned heavily on his knee, other hand pressed to his damp forehead. "Fine. I will do it."

Damned if he did, damned if he didn't: all by two vengeful gods he'd had no business with since he was in wool jackets and ties.

"Father is waiting for you at the church we previously attended. I trust it has not been so long that you are incapable of finding it."

His father's tone made him feel eleven again. He could hear the shuffle of papers, made scratchy by the distance. He wouldn't be surprised that Dai had been looking over paperwork while speaking to him.

"You will go no later than Wednesday and you need not contact me: I will make the exchange when Father notifies me. The nakodo will do the same. Do not be late."

With a click, he was gone.

The line was silent, but the relief Prowl half-expected didn't come. Still dumbly holding the tiny phone to his ear, he was caught with an urge to fling it across the living room, to somehow stand up and make _it_ real—frustration, shock, the beginnings of cold rage—with sound and impact. Instead, his hand fell to his lap, leaving him staring at the wall.

The deadline was unnecessary. Unnecessary, insulting, and thoroughly his father: the older man ceaselessly clamped down and made him feel like he was unqualified to do anything on his own. It was as if he had failed even as a normal human being, capable of following orders. But even if Prowl had been given another week to think about it, it would have been the same answer.

They—he—needed the money. Lockdown wasn't the only one coming up short.

A simple ride in an ambulance, such as the one Prowl had taken after being knocked unconscious in the Towers incident, was incredibly expensive. He hadn't thought a moment about it until the bill had surfaced the previous week after being processed by his insurance company, and both the nearly-four-figure sum and the deadline made him go cold. That factual debt and its weight in his life couldn't be denied: any assistance was not only welcome but sorely needed, even though the young officer was already beginning to feel how humiliating it was to sell his own beliefs for some unknown sum.

Confession. Prowl could hardly even imagine returning to that dark environment. He had unconsciously frowned at the mere sight of churches for as long as he could remember. But he was no longer Catholic, he told himself. He had been fully immersed in Buddhism for years: it was his choice of beliefs, rather than a primeval guilt system foisted on him at birth. No ghosts, no matter how ingrained in the miserable flesh of his childhood, would rise when he had such control over himself.

Confession, at this point, would be some sort of primitive ritual he could forget the moment he walked out. Drained of all meaning by a few beautiful years of greater enlightenment. A task to be completed for payment.

He said so to himself multiple times, during work and at home, but on Wednesday the church looked exactly the same as it had when he was young and cowed, and he had to fight the urge to turn around and walk out. He stood motionless, glaring unseeingly at the high ceiling and the weak light that made it past Detroit's skyscrapers, until an attendant came up and asked for his name, then led him to his appointment.

The confession box was small and dark, somehow more coffin-like than the wooden cavern he sat in as a child. Prowl peeled off his coat and half-folded it nervously. He made sure he did not flinch when the curtain behind the screen slithered back. For a moment, all was silent.

"Hello, my son."

"Hello, Father," Prowl replied, little more than a verbal knee-jerk to the soft, aged voice in the other coffin.

That's all the religion was, he thought, closing his eyes briefly. Catholicism was a series of desperate knee-jerks, all trained to respond to pre-taught shame or danger, because sinful humans cannot be trusted with their own lives. It was scramble out of a sinkhole of human weakness and horror, instead of a lighted uphill path of hope and betterment and oneness. Those who focus only on sins are sinners by nature. It was a quote or a notion from somewhere, but Prowl couldn't remember.

What he could remember—what he had to remember, before the weak, frightened man started speaking in the hopes of putting that same fear into him—was that he had done _nothing_ _wrong_.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was four years ago."

He did not cross himself, but after those first ritual words were out, Prowl's mind blanked. He was so focused on his overwhelming innocence that he couldn't come up with a single missed appointment or a nasty grudge to satisfy the indulgent red-curtained maw that was the confession window. At last, he managed that he had been unkind to a co-worker. And angered his father. And played a cruel joke on a… friend (housemate, lover, _boyfriend_) without realizing it was cruel.

"A short list, for four years," the other man said when Prowl's list ended in long silence, his voice kind. "If only we were all so well-behaved."

Prowl only nodded, hands clasped tightly in his lap. The priest sounded the same as he did when he was eleven, or fifteen. It was hard to imagine that eight-year gap, or the results (his body, his mind, his independence) that placed him so at-odds with this cloistered environment. He was about to ask for his penance and so he could get out when the old Father rustled in the confessional, making Prowl stare, wide-eyed, at the screened window.

"Please, tell me a little about your life."

Prowl frowned deeply, mind blanking more viciously than before. He should have been better prepared for such an interrogation; of course his father would have expressed his _concern_ over the state of his soul, leaving the Father to wonder over his untold sins. A few minor infringements would hardly be an accurate account for four years of living by his own beastly means.

Still, Prowl's skin prickled. Invasion. Exposure.

Lockdown.

"Much has… changed."

He said it as a way of stalling. Still, he slipped helplessly into that life-old rhythm of thoughtless obedience (the one that came from being trapped in a dark room _where God was watching_) even as he frantically carded through his warm bungalow existence and _edited_ it. If the priest had asked him this three months ago, there would be nothing to tell. Just reports and work and meditation and Earnest Hemmingway.

There had been no _time_ to sin. Perhaps that wasn't coincidence. Perhaps he had never trusted himself to step outside of the sense of control he had maintained so… religiously.

"Tell me."

Prowl put a hand to his hot neck, quickly bunching his ponytail through his fingers. Four years was a long time, but—his head was beginning to spin--there was nothing _to_ his earlier existence, no fake sins he could feed the priest's concern with: nothing but blankness and a chilly disregard for _breathing_ that didn't qualify as an infraction against God. Nothing but directionless resentment and personal barriers to all sides. What had changed?

Everything. Life. He had made one; he had quit surviving and started living, started living with a--

"I am living with a man," Prowl muttered suddenly, throat tight. He swallowed against the black weight that descended on his chest. "For three months now, I have… been living with him."

The confessional was stone-silent. Prowl's heart began to pound as he realized his mistake.

It was the _event_, the only thing he could speak of: the thing that had transformed him. But what of all that came before? Desperately, his mind threw sin and guilt and _material_ at him in such a gush he was inundated, clenching his eyes shut and breathing out in trapped hiss. He could have said anything about the drag-races. About the initial clashes between him and Lockdown, the foolish things he did.

Pride. Greed. Wrath. Envy. Why, _why_ did he have to say--

"Is this man your friend?"

He couldn't find anything to say to that. Not when he knew what Lockdown's mouth felt like on the back of his neck, sucking hard. His nausea grew. Every passing second of silence was more incriminating: the fact that he mentioned the other man at all, in a place made for the purging of sins… There was a pensive, dusty drawing of breath on the other side of the screen, and _it_ hit him.

The old fear. Child fear. He feared what would come next and feared words—judgment—as he hadn't for many years.

"How did you come to live with him?"

"I… I simply did," he managed, mouth numb. Still searching for that safe, all-encompassing euphemism that would save him from the priest. "I was running from—a situation I was not comfortable with and he allowed me to stay with him."

He began to speak of that situation and his resultant demotion, desperate to divert attention away from his greatest sin. No, _perceived_ sin, he seethed inwardly, hating how it was his first thought even as his panic grew. He was still dredging up details of his miserable attempts at undercover work when the priest actually stopped him. Prowl's heart gave a particularly vicious thump.

"You seem reluctant to speak of this man," the window said slowly. "It is a large step to cohabitate with someone. Are you comfortable with him, Prowl? That is… do you feel safe with him?"

With that, the threat of exposure (_so close_) was suddenly localized on Lockdown, which made something violently convulse in Prowl's mind. He could have screamed _yes_, I feel protected when I'm around him, I feel like nothing can touch me, but the Father's tone of voice poisoned the question. In his mind's eye, Prowl looked at the man who shared his life—who gave him his life--and suddenly saw only muscles and indecencies (_there is no God in lust between two men)_ and felt hard hands. He breathed deeply and pushed his hand over his face, sick feeling doubling.

He was being poisoned. Had to get out. Bring this to an end.

"My son, if you have some sin that you are concealing from the Lord, you must out with it. Only then can you be forgiven."

The cage crushed in. Prowl could do no more than breathe in again, uncaring if the Father heard his gasps for air _and truth_. The old man spoke with a true sorrow, a true fervency that only made the knot inside him tighten. The rankness seeped out of it, rising to the top of his skin and making him feel like a stranger atop his own soiled bones.

"The Lord forgives all."

"Even degenerates of the Buddhist faith?" Prowl asked faintly. He could only feel his lips, which were frozen in a hazy, horrible half-smile. It was debatable whether the Father even heard him. Or cared.

"The time for healing is always. There is no path too long that you cannot return from if your destination is Christ. If you choose to return to Christ, He will forgive your absence, as those who find their way to Him are often more true than those who are led."

There was a pause, both too short and too long, before the priest cleared his throat.

"If you have sinned in a grave way, such as… committing a perversion, all that is required is an admission and the proper penance and—"

Prowl was on his feet before he knew it, snatching his half-folded jacket and shoving his arms through it, skin burning painfully. His knuckles smacked the wooden wall; he didn't feel it. There was a rustle from the priest's side, a soft word of surprise, but Prowl ripped open the door to the confessional anyways, pausing only at a cry of _wait_. He turned, boiling.

"I am done confessing, Father," he said coldly, zipping up his coat with nerveless hands and jerking it straight, neck and brainstem burning red. "I have done my duty and I want no part of your Christ. I have done nothing wrong."

Prowl slammed the confessional door and stalked out of the silent church, but neither the vindication nor his exit into the harsh Detroit sunlight could sap the poison from his blood. The harm was already done. From the moment he said it, he made it truth.

_Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned._


	35. Poisoned

A/N: Bear with me, kids.

Reference to Odd Moments via Excited Torque if you're not keeping up with that. Also, meaningless but necessary age swap: LD is now 40 (and Torque is 31). It works much better.

* * *

Poisoned

* * *

Prowl's late return on Wednesday went unnoticed.

A few blank days went by, disturbed by little more than the click of the door and the steady clunk of work boots as Lockdown tromped in and out without a word. The young officer spent much of his time on his laptop, returning again and again to his online bank account, always with a tenseness that Lockdown, when present, did not catch or did not understand. At last, on Saturday evening, Prowl closed his laptop with a soft snap and a breath that was both relieved and suffering.

In his father's eyes—and the Father's eyes--he had kept his side of the bargain. It didn't feel like victory in the slightest, but at least he was done. The only other comfort he had was the confidence of the Priest: his secret, no matter how messy and undefined, would not find its way to Dai.

Lockdown, looking over as though _seeing_ his skinny, hunched housemate for the first time that week, leaned over and kissed his neck, flicking his limp hair out of the way. Prowl froze until the warmth left his skin, breathing out and looking away when the older man thumbed questioningly at his chin. When Lockdown let him go, the officer immediately disappeared into the bedroom again. He failed to respond to a half-hopeful, half-exhausted hand on his side when Lockdown followed suit, but the latter fell asleep before he could think to be worried.

Finally, Lockdown noticed that something—or everything--was honestly wrong with his lover: all it took was an early work morning and a pair of ice-blue sunglasses settled on Prowl's perfect Japanese-American nose.

When he turned around from digging in the fridge, it struck Lockdown dumb to see the fully-suited officer standing with his arms crossed, leather jacket zipped up to his chin and his exotic eyes once more covered by that opaque shield. He stared, hand locked around the orange juice. Prowl waited, wordless, for him to get out of the way.

"Haven't seen those in a while," Lockdown grunted when he backed away, sore back pressed against the counter, dirt-smeared face crinkled.

"I have been intending to purchase another pair for some time."

His tone was clipped. He reached in and retrieved a bottle of water, offering no more. Lockdown couldn't see anything but an impassive nose and flat mouth. When Prowl turned to leave, he stared after his housemate with a tenseness and a sense of foreboding that he couldn't place. The door shut and Lockdown was struck by how empty his precious house was before he glanced at the microwave clock (fifteen minutes until first shift) and kneaded his nose, exhaling thickly.

He only saw Prowl's dark eyes three more times before the angular glass became fused to his face, day and night, outside or inside. Just like before.

* * *

Yoketron closed his eyes as the young man hit the punching bag with another blind strike.

He could almost trace the pain daggering up his arm, and had only to open his ears for Prowl's steadying, frustrated intake of breath and the following, equally flawed strike. He exhaled; the tension from Prowl alone was enough to give him a headache, and to watch him harm himself only doubled the stress. He didn't even move to correct his student: in this state of mind, it would only add to his frustration.

He had watched Prowl somewhat sadly for the past two practices, Tuesday and Thursday, but what he saw was enough material to draw a conclusion from. A disturbance to rival the poison of early fall had taken over the young man, and in just a few days. When compared to the contentedness he had witnessed after Prowl's initial return, the switch was deeply troubling.

He had pondered having another conversation with the young man, but it was uncommonly difficult to isolate Prowl from the rest of his students when he left so quickly after practice ended. It was unusual and yet another reason to suspect true trouble. That was why Yoketron's modest bonsai trees now stood sunning themselves on the porch of the dojo, in plain sight of the practice hall.

Yoketron set his traps well. If there was one thing Prowl enjoyed, it was being allowed to trim his sensei's bonsai. The old martial artist gladly remembered the time when Prowl, a wary and distant child of seventeen, watched him, unblinking, from across the portion of the dojo reserved for meditation as the ancient man sat and cleaned up his tiny toy-garden with the aid of spectacles and surprisingly steady hands.

Yoketron didn't give it another thought, thinking him only curious. When he was trimming again one day, however, he glanced up owlishly to see Prowl's bare feet firmly planted behind his current shrub. He looked up and smiled; the sharp, overly-formal bow the young man made caused his expression to soften further.

"Are you in need of something, Prowl?"

"What is that?" the boy asked at length, voice hushed. His pretty eyes were locked on the tiny tree, fists clenched.

"Bonsai."

After receiving his answer, his student looked embarrassed for asking and quickly excused himself, cringing even from the slap of his bare feet on the floor as he retreated. The stares continued whenever his sensei brought his trees out for a little fresh air and energy. Regardless of Prowl's silence, Yoketron knew a look of yearning when he saw one, and so called the boy to him one day after practice and seated him in front of a modestly neglected tree without a word.

When he put the clippers into the young man's hand, it was as though he had asked his student to perform surgery or disarm a bomb. Prowl's face was absolutely stunned as he faced the untidy web of branches, clearly terrified of mangling what seemed to be a fragile organism, stunted and weak. When his sensei put a hand on his shoulder, Prowl jumped and jerked the clippers away at the same moment, eyes wide—wide and filled with a certain sense of fear, as though he had already made a horrible mistake without even touching the plant. It was the first thing that made the old master wonder at his upbringing (and why no one ever came to his demonstrations), but Yoketron merely smiled, patted his shoulder, then took his tiny hand and guided it to a gnarled limb, making him snip it off.

Prowl caught his breath when the small twig hit the floor, then blinked when he realized no cataclysm had occurred. The tree was in one piece and the clippers were still in his grip. Yoketron ran his hand absently over the greenery, voice soft with well-trod wonder.

"Though small, they have as much resilience as a red oak. This is life, Prowl: simply in a smaller container than we are used to. Cut it and it will grow back. You have nothing to fear."

Still, Prowl's hands shook for almost a year before he gained the confidence with clippers that would lead to sensible, if uninspired, pruning. With as slowly as bonsai grew, there was very little chance to offer this reward—Yoketron could always sense a calming and a centering in his student when they sat side-by-side, interrupted by nothing more than an occasional, pensive snip and the sound of the wind rustling through big brothers' leaves outside--and even now there was no need… but that mattered little when Prowl's own needs seemed to be so deep. His trees could bear a little hair-cut if it would bring a smile to Prowl.

After practice ended, Yoketron padded up to the young man, now mechanically packing his bag without pausing to wipe the sweat from his tied-back hair. Even the silly glasses that he had taken to wearing again were fogged, but he did not move to take them off. The face underneath was perfectly blank. Yoketron waited until he had his bag zipped up before speaking.

"Prowl."

The young officer flinched. Before his master could wonder why, Prowl turned and inclined his head, fist clenched tightly around his bag-strap.

"I realize I have not been performing to my full capabilities, sensei," he said shortly. The light of the dojo glinted off of his opaque glasses. "I personally apologize and assure you I am working to amend it."

"I was simply going to ask you if you had a spare moment," his master chided him, the simple shake of his head warding away any seriousness. He had no need to apologize or use such language. Yoketron smiled fondly, extending a hand toward where his little trees stood in a row, soaking up the direct January sunshine. "My bonsai are in need of a trimming, you see, and my glasses are nowhere to be found."

The simple mention, or the generous tone, was enough. Yoketron could see Prowl still as the offer hit him. It was difficult to be cut off from his eyes—those same eyes that had become so expressive over the past month—and thus, his thoughts, but in the end, it didn't matter. The young man's mouth tightened and he straightened only to bow stiffly and excuse himself.

He had paperwork to do. Perhaps one of the other students could assist him. He wished his master well.

Prowl shouldered his bag and exited, leaving his master with one hand to his chin, worry doubling in his chest as he realized that Prowl would not come back the next week.

* * *

The day of the preliminary mi-ai meeting, Prowl took the day off of work. Optimus approved his leave without even looking at his reason (family issues, he wrote after staring at the pale green slip for nearly ten minutes, gut twisting) and still stared after him with a furrowed brow whenever they passed in the police station. Regardless, it found the young officer in a rented-out level of a luxurious high-rise, claiming minimalist zen organization and several (clashing) breeds of orchids positioned strategically around the office. The nakodo was a pudgy man with an overabundance of energy, all too eager to ask him questions and pass him a hand-held screen so he could fill out a questionnaire concerning his basic likes and dislikes.

On paper, Prowl Atlas enjoyed martial arts, was generally conservative and cared little for sports of any kind. He was a vegetarian and worked as a police officer. He considered himself Buddhist. He did not watch TV and had no opinion on family-size or children.

Sitting in the armchair in front of the man's desk, Prowl stared at the bland listing of characteristics for a full minute, trying to see _himself_ summarized in the bubbled-in terms and failing. So much was missing, but… but to any woman, he would seem a respectable mate. Throat permanently welded shut, he handed the datapad back to the nakodo, whose name didn't matter. A few more gaudy promises and he was walking out of the multi-use building and into the open air of the city.

It had been a generally non-fatal event… if he could survive the follow-up with an actual woman who, by a mathematical comparison of pre-logged traits, suited his reserved demeanor and conservative leanings. The nauseated blankness he had felt while filling out the survey came back full-force while he stood on the steps of the building.

The nakodo, smiling and full of promises, was nothing more than a mathematician for something that could not be reduced to math. No matter whether marriage after being 'matched' was purely voluntary in the 21st century, the very thought made him ill.

The young man stared at the busy street, only breaking from his trance when someone bumped into him. It was only three in the afternoon, but he had no wish to return to work or stay in the sunny ruckus of downtown Detroit. There was little to do and too much to mull over. In the end, Prowl drove home, head bowed into the frigid wind. He dismounted in the garage and looped around to the front door, only to practically bump into a man who was coming out of the house.

He was dressed in jeans and a button-down, completely unrecognizable from his sandy hair to his shoes. There was a split-second of dumb mutual staring before there came a rumble from inside the house and Lockdown stepped out after the invader, making it down three steps before locking eyes with Prowl—and freezing down to his steel-toed boots. The silence thickened.

The man was handsome, Prowl noted with a viciousness he thought himself incapable of, and he didn't miss the stunned look on Lockdown's tattooed face. Regardless of details, regardless of _story_, his housemate did not expect him back so early. Prowl's eyes narrowed behind his glasses, throat tightening.

The man didn't see his reaction, eyes instead flicking quickly down to the golden badge on his chest before he muttered something between his teeth and gave the ex-racer a stunted hand-gesture. He trotted off, ducking around the young man standing stolidly in his path. Prowl watched him go, unmoving, then turned back to Lockdown, completely unsure of what his voice would sound like when he spoke.

"Who was that?"

It came out flat, with only a glint of steel. The man's truck jumped to life behind the house and disappeared onto the highway, a black tarp stretched across the back.

"That guy? Just…"

Lockdown paused, rubbing at his face with a puff of air, like he was too tired to speak—or trying to bide time. Prowl cut in before he could dig up the right excuse to soothe him.

"Someone," he said icily, stepping past the mammoth man, who looked after him and his strangely snappy movements with a budding sneer.

"Christ, kid, what's your problem? I'm doin' some work on his car."

"Fascinating." He had to swallow down something sick and furious when he heard Lockdown's heavy, slow footsteps behind him. Ripping his jacket off and tossing it onto the couch, hands and lips numb, he asked far too lightly, "If that is so, why is the garage empty?"

"We were dealin'," he grunted, flicking the door shut behind them. The house was not lit: Prowl did not have to wonder what could be done in the dark. Lockdown seemed to realize his excuse was not enough, but, for all his hazy pauses, was once again having trouble finding the right words.

"Details. He'll drop it off in a few days if—" Prowl heard him kick off his work boots, heard them hit the wall before his voice suddenly roughened with anger and exhaustion and something else entirely that made the young man's skin prickle horribly. "Shit, why d'you even care?"

"A fine question."

It was the last thing said all night, barely heard for its deadly softness. Lockdown retreated with a disgusted snort and Prowl remained on the couch until six am the next morning, physically ill with his own imagination and an echo from his childhood (brought screeching back to the foot of his bed and the cusp of his throat by _forgive me father for I have sinned_) that said there could be nothing but lust between two men. The same two men did not speak for two days.

The next afternoon, Prowl came home early and ripped the sheets off the bed. He drove to the Laundromat and drowned them in two cups of snow-white detergent and slammed the door to the same washer an impetuous criminal had cornered him at four months ago. He waited with his wet eyes fixed blindly on one page of The Hills until the dryer stopped turning.

_Fancy meetin' you here._

* * *

"Hey! Hey, officer!"

A honk of a horn interrupted the usual silence that surrounded the lean-to house. Prowl looked up from pulling on his riding gloves, then immediately looked back down as a small purple vehicle pulled up in the gravel drive, jerking to a halt. The driver was bundled up in scarves and hurrying to get out of the car. Torque seemed like a stranger from this far away and Prowl had no urge to cross the muddy distance between them, chest tightening.

His work-day had just ended, but he had excused himself from patrol for that night. Something had gone wrong with his survey and he had to go back to the nakodo again. It only worsened his week: a week that was already ruined by the previous night, when he came in from a late patrol to find Lockdown passed out on the couch with an empty bottle of whiskey next to him.

Scorn had bubbled up, hot and quick. He had tried to push it away, but it stayed, charring his bones. If the man had so little money, why spend it on alcohol?

There had been a scrap of paper on the table. It looked like the beginning of a note. Lockdown had scribbled his housemate's name and nothing more. He couldn't stay sober long enough to ask him to pick up something at the store, apparently.

With that notion, no matter how self-invented--no matter how the other man had hunched over the scrap for an hour, half-drunk and sick, and could manage no more than five letters in a way of basement confessions before he drank himself into a stupor—the younger man's patience was instantly gone.

In that moment, sprawled face-down with his arm hanging off the couch, the forty-year-old man had seemed as pathetic and slovenly a creature as the young officer had ever encountered, and the very thought of touching him made his stomach turn. Prowl had wanted to leave the house and get out; cleanse himself in the cold air, cleanse himself of all the man's vices that were stuck to his skin as well, ruining him. Instead, he had taken the empty bottle and rinsed it out and put it in the recycling bin. He left his housemate on the couch and bundled himself up in one corner of the frigid, clean bed, trying to swallow down the painful change inside of him.

"Come on, you! I've got that negotiable-evening meal I promised!"

Prowl looked up again, jerked out of his sleepless night. Torque slammed her car door and hefted up a tupperware filled to the brim with a tangle of something pale green and splotchy white, smiling broadly.

"I found some sort of zucchini-alfredo-parmesan hybrid recipe and I wanted to try it out on you. You cut the zucchini up like little noodles and it's—hell, from what I've tasted, I don't even think Lockdown would be able to tell the difference."

She laughed and tugged at her scarf with one hand, closing the distance as Prowl turned and began to walk towards the garage.

"And hey, I know you're not one for phone-talks, but you gotta call a lady back when she wants to make food for you! It's called common courtesy and you're going to _beg_ me for this recipe, or I guess you can beg that food network website, they've got this great vegetarian section--"

Prowl exhaled sharply through his nose as he put his helmet under his arm, suddenly desperate to be on the road and away from the loud woman. He just needed to do what he had to, which was go back to the high-rise and humiliate himself again. He did not need to talk to anyone to do that.

He tried to forget the fact that he had been the one to call her in the first place: last week seemed like it was a completely different world, filled with characters and options that made no sense to him now.

"Torque."

Prowl's tone was less than friendly, but she only laughed, patting her forehead with a gloved hand.

"God, I'm sorry. I know I'm going a million miles per hour. I just haven't talked with _anyone_ and I _think_ I have something to tell you. It's only a _think_ but it's a good think. A really good think," she told him warmly, hugging the tupperware to her chest, then finally seemed to realize Prowl was fully suited and half on his motorcycle, securing his helmet over his head. Her pretty face dropped, excited haze disappearing in a moment. "Are you… going somewhere?"

"Yes, unfortunately. An appointment," he informed her, visor locked on his bike's dials as he kicked his motorcycle to life. Torque bit her lip and brushed her dark hair out of her face, left side finally returning to its regular a-symmetrical fare—a style most unsuited for someone of her age, Prowl thought shortly, ears beginning to burn underneath his helmet as she smiled for him.

"Oh. I knew I should have called first. Should I… I mean, how long will it last? Should I wait here for you?"

"It will last all evening," he lied, trying the engine again. When his bike was puttering steadily, he faced her briefly, resettling his ice-blue visor as if to draw attention from his blank face. "I apologize that you took time out of your day to come here, but it is imperative that I attend. Perhaps another time."

With a nod, Prowl sped off onto the highway and left the older woman in the frigid, sunless garage, empty of both a motorcycle and a musclecar. After a moment of leaning heavily on a workbench, Torque let herself inside the house and put the tupperware in the fridge. She found a piece of paper that already said 'Prowl' on the coffee table, scribbled a little, and left.

* * *

_Darling—_

_I hope you feel better and I hope your appointment goes well. If you ever need to talk, call me, okay? I'm worried about you. The food is in the fridge. _

Love, T

_PS: tell LD to pick up his goddamn phone if the bastard is still alive._

* * *

His insides were so twisted and clogged, it wasn't any surprise when Prowl began to cough and have trouble getting up in the morning.

All of the stress involved in the past few weeks had lowered his immune system to a bare flinch of organelles: the resultant bout of influenza seemed a fitting outward manifestation of an inward disturbance. It was quite a bug, as well. He had dizzy sweating bouts that left him shivering uncontrollably as he waited on his motorcycle in the dead of night, cold air seeping through his clothes and down to his bones and making it hard to breathe.

Of course he still worked, patrol and all. Logic told him he was physically weak and at risk for infecting his coworkers; something far more desperate and ill said he couldn't spend any more time in close quarters with Lockdown than he was already forced to. He needed to work, if just to give his mind something to focus on.

His weakness only grew, bringing his existence to a slow, painful crawl. Rest, and therefore healing, was not forthcoming. His sleep was frequently interrupted by night-sweats and bad dreams. He usually ended up falling into a death coma a mere hour before 6 am and then had to crawl out of bed and scrub the imaginary sickness off of his dry skin, head swimming horribly.

Optimus' recent over-attentiveness was finally rewarded when he caught Prowl collapsed on his desk with dark circles under his eyes, pencil still angled in his hand. That day, Optimus put his foot down and kicked him out of the station. _You need rest_, his Prime said, as though it were a kindness to send him away from the only place where he could pretend he was normal. What benevolent Optimus didn't realize was that 'rest' consisted of sitting curled on the couch or the frigid back porch in a silent house, waiting with equal trepidation for the call from the nakodo or the slam of the front door.

He spent most of his time in bed, drifting in and out of messy sleep and coughing himself awake every fifteen minutes. Finally, at ten at night, he managed to get up and fold the clothes he had taken from the Laundromat a few days ago. The normal, vigilant Prowl would have been horrified that so much time had passed before folding occurred, but at the moment, it was enough work for the foggy young man to get both of his hands moving at the same time. It was pathetic, but it was a task.

As he re-folded a shirt for the fifth time in slow-motion, Lockdown came into the bedroom. He paused at the door for only a second before he sidled up to the doubled-over officer and put his big hand against Prowl's aching side. Prowl jerked away before Lockdown's hand could push under his shirt or his lips could touch his neck, which might have made him drop the shirt and run to the bathroom with his hands over his mouth.

"Stop. I don't feel well," he snapped without looking up, stomach knotted, neck suddenly burning. He didn't see Lockdown raise his inked brow, but he looked down just enough to see the black dirt and grease caked onto the older man's calloused hand, still settled on his waist. He made a thick noise of disgust, elbowing it away, which made Lockdown hiss in surprise.

"The hell's your problem?" he demanded.

"You're filthy. I said I do not want to be touched."

It wasn't more than a hateful mutter, but it was enough to get Lockdown's hands off of him for good. The offending appendages turned into fists at the older man's sides; the worker half-glared at the back of Prowl's head and his messily-tied hair, anger building in a slow burn.

"S'what happens when a guy barely has time to run through the sprinklers between shifts."

When Prowl still refused to look back, Lockdown peeled off his grimy, sweat-stained shirt and flung it onto the bed, directly on top of the pile of clean clothes Prowl was working through, making the younger man's skin prickle in something far more vicious than frustration.

"Sides, you're lookin' pretty shitty yourself, kid. I wouldn't talk."

Prowl glared after him and continued to glare even after the bathroom door shut and the water hissed on. His hands were shaking so much he could hardly fold, but when he went to bed, he could hardly sleep for the sound of Lockdown breathing slowly and deeply next to him. How could he despise someone down to their very skin-cells?

The next day, Prowl dragged himself out of bed some time after noon and stumbled into the kitchen, where a small bottle of cough-gels was waiting on the counter. He hardly saw it, considering the pain in his body and how quickly anger exhausted him, but then he stared at the little bottle for a moment, oddly blank. He moved to pick it up, first inspecting the ingredients label--already trying to somehow ignore this odd kindness from the man who had no room to be giving kindnesses.

Halfway through the tiny text, his mood immediately crunched in further. Gelatin. He couldn't consume anything with gelatin. Animal product.

Lip curling, he tossed the thing in the trash with a sudden, bitter anger that Lockdown had done nothing to deserve. When Lockdown returned at four am, he heard raspy coughing from his bedroom. He moved to get a glass for water; then, looking down, he saw the cough-gel bottle unopened and glinting in the trash and a part of him simply closed off and felt as though it would never open again.

He fell asleep on the couch again, an empty bottle in his hand.


	36. And Burn

A/N: Some non-explicit sex in this one, just forewarning you. Sad, sad non-explicit sex. Also, ugly, ugly trauma. Read the next chapter immediately after, preeze, if you trust me in the slightest.

* * *

And Burn

* * *

Prowl was half in a cookbook and half in a pan, chopping broccoli rhythmically, when his housemate made himself known with a kiss to his exposed neck.

Prowl flinched, hand freezing on the knife. It was the same flinch he gave when the door opened every day, only deeper. The hope that Lockdown would pass on and go to the porch was quickly quashed as one kiss turned into two and three and a big hand snuck around Prowl's side, tugging him backwards.

Prowl's gut lurched immediately; the headache he had chased off in the last hour came back with a vengeance. He tried to break free with an intolerant noise, reaching pointedly for another ingredient, but it changed nothing. With the older man's predictable and maddening bulldozer pace, it escalated until Lockdown was finally pawing at his belt-buckle, rumbling at his back.

"_Lockdown_," he snapped at last, jerking away and stuffing his dress-shirt back into his khakis where Lockdown had tugged it out, searching for warm skin.

Gone were the t-shirts, the cotton pants, the _ease_. From wrist to ankle to neck, the young police officer was once more starched and fully buttoned. Or mostly buttoned, as Lockdown's fingers made quick work of his collar fastenings, pulling his collar wide enough to nip at his shoulder with a deep breath.

"Got a late shift. Now or never."

"There is tomorrow," Prowl said stiffly, ignoring the insistent press of the other man's toned chest at his back. His irritation spiked to incendiary levels when Lockdown tugged his tight ponytail out, sending his dark hair falling over his face.

"Late shift tomorrow, too." Prowl's lip curled when the dockworker reached forward and shut the stove off, growling into his back: "C'mon. It'll just take a second."

"I was not aware that was bragging material."

He sneered it as softly as he could, but even then, his voice shook. His control was slipping. He heard Lockdown murmur something gruff and entirely unconcerned into his neck, already too absorbed in his scent and his loose, soft hair to be swayed.

The more Prowl tried to gain control, the more it seemed to cruelly jerk away from him. Even as he told himself he did not want it, the urge to have sex was still desperately strong, all the more messy and ruthless for spending so much time beating it down—avoiding Lockdown's grasp, his eyes, his bed. There in the kitchen, Prowl was struck with the urge to turn around and be blessedly immersed: to wrap himself around the other man's warm body, to kiss and make it real with the guiltless rustle of sheets (just like before, it was so easy to do) but he was frozen.

He couldn't do that. He--himself, his tortured brain, swollen with searching for reasons _why not_—couldn't want it. Couldn't want it. Ego over Id. The very thought made him ill.

So what happened when the older man kissed him behind his ear was a dumb animal reaction, complete with a primordial rush of heat. A compulsive arch into the man behind him (immediately regretted, Prowl winced behind his glasses) was enough to acquiesce.

Suddenly, it was too far to stop; belts jangled and his heart slammed at his ribs, only worsened by the big, familiar hands on his chest and hip. Suddenly, weakened by some sort of hysteria that came from having Lockdown so close, Prowl turned and kissed the huge man as though he were begging him, hands pressing against his hard chest. It was a shallow relief—certainly not enough to sustain him when Lockdown pushed him back around and yanked down his pants, sucking all possible arousal straight out of his blood.

Uncushioned by lust, the act of copulation was jerky and crude and unclean and terrifying, as he had always known it to be. Sweating through nothing more than nerves, Prowl had to endure being crushed against the counter until the older man cursed into his hair. The two stood for a moment in the silent kitchen, Lockdown riding off the heat-wave with his face pressed into the young man's neck, Prowl long-cold with his hands clawed against the counter-top.

"Christ, kid," the older man rasped, breathing in slow and easy; his tongue slithered along the back of Prowl's burning ear with a chuckle, hand still heavy on his hip. "You should charge for that."

"Get off," Prowl heard himself say, chest tight as though he would die. He fought not to turn and push him away. Heavy. Far too heavy.

Lockdown planted one last wet animal kiss on the back of his neck and backed off. Prowl had to take several deep breaths before he was capable of reaching for his pants, then hissed to himself as he struggled with his belt, suddenly in a rage. Lockdown looked over at him with blank expression, big hands on his own belt. He started to open his mouth, to question, but Prowl yanked his belt tight, face bloodless, and reached for the still-warm pan. Gritting his teeth, he flung it into the sink with a sharp metal-metal clang then fixed Lockdown with a furious expression, lip curling.

"Disgusting. You are _disgusting_."

It hit the older man like a train—but before he could say anything or even curse back out of surprise, Prowl had stalked past him and into the hallway. Skin still prickling with shock, Lockdown heard the bathroom door slam shut, followed by the hiss of the shower on its hottest setting.

It ran for an hour, even after the water-heater went silent.

* * *

The next day, possibly just to escape the cramped house, Prowl walked his motorcycle into the dry field behind the ramshackle porch and spent an hour kneeling in the cold, hunched over a toolbox.

After wandering outside, Lockdown leaned against the porch and watched him, managing a dry smirk when the kid jammed his fingers with a wrench and clutched them for a minute. The young officer finally stripped his gloves off with two furious flicks and stared angrily at the open manual, whose flimsy and finicky pages he had weighted down with sticks. It looked like nothing more serious than a tune-up, but Prowl was actually attempting to take care of his motorcycle on his own—most likely because he was too furious at Lockdown to approach him about it.

It had been obvious for a few days: while it hadn't been easy lately, something inescapably heavy had settled between them, fueled by Prowl's relapsed ice-blue arrogance and something darker. Lockdown couldn't be paid to forget the other day. No, something had crawled underneath Prowl's skin and wouldn't leave, and it was fouling up every single thing he said and did.

Usually when that happened, a good, legit roll would cure him, but that hadn't happened either—and it wasn't much to do with screwed-up schedules anymore. It made Lockdown want to avoid his own house, which was genuinely fucked up.

A dozen meters away, Prowl snarled in the way Prowl always snarled when he dearly wanted to curse. Lockdown finally shook his head then straightened and began to meander over to the middle of the field. While it was nice seeing the kid try to take responsibility, it was the kinder thing to intervene—the poor bike needed to be saved from Prowl's ignorance and apparently _he_ had something to make up for. God knew what it was, but Prowl's scathing stares made it real enough.

Damn the kid and his mood-swings.

"Doin' alright, darlin'?"

Prowl straightened at the sound of the dead grass underneath his heavy boots, then returned to his crouch. When Lockdown came to a halt a foot away and there was still no response, he asked slowly, "Any reason you ain't in the garage?"

Prowl muttered something about fresh air—the same fresh air that was turning his cramping fingers blue as he tussled with delicate mechanics he didn't understand in the slightest. Lockdown cocked his head almost patiently, one hand hooked on his belt as he looked at Prowl's hunched back.

"Got tools in there," he offered after a moment. "Heater, too."

"I am fine," Prowl said sharply, jerking his scarf tighter around his neck. At this distance, Lockdown could see his little bird body shaking in the cold and snorted—he wore nothing more than a t-shirt and his white skin seemed to reflect the constant chill. After a moment, Lockdown went to his knees beside his housemate, thoroughly invading the circle of resentment that vibrated around the other man.

"Can't say the same for your ride, if you keep pickin' at it like that."

Prowl didn't look at him, pretty eyes narrowed behind his glasses and locked on the maze of pipes and nuts in front of him, all poorly drawn in the manual pinned underneath his hand. He was holding the wrench all wrong, to boot. Lockdown looked between the uncapped bike and the glowering young man for a moment, then exhaled and ran his hand over his skull, trying to push down his irritation.

"C'mon, kid. It's cold," he said thickly, reaching out to put his arm across his housemate's hunched back. "You go inside an—"

"Don't _touch me_."

His hand was shoved away; the order came out quick and convulsive, like a vomiting reflex, and the next second Prowl was on his feet, wrench falling back into the toolbox with a splitting clang. A second of silence passed between them, where Lockdown stared upwards, his hand still raised in the cold air, and Prowl's fingers tangled helplessly in the clasps of his jacket, face white underneath his blue visor. Then the younger man turned and strode stiffly towards the house, slamming both the screen and the door behind him.

Lockdown stayed crouching in the dry field for a minute more, eyes locked blindly on his own white hands, then rose and kicked the engine cover shut and left the bike to rust.

* * *

It was only by the unluckiest of scheduling mishaps that they ended up climbing into bed at the same instant that night—by that same unfortunate occurrence, Prowl found himself half-pinned against the bed with a big hand turning his cheek.

Caught against Lockdown's chest in the silent dark, there was nothing he could do but accept the kiss, even as it turned his gut to stone. He didn't know whether he had the strength to bear the next fifteen minutes, but he certainly didn't have the courage to reject Lockdown so directly. Anger waited so close underneath the other man's skin and acting anything but normal—or what the other man had conditioned him into--wasn't an option.

Prowl turned his head away after one brush of their lips, unable to do more than lay back and close his eyes, trying to control his breathing. The heat of his body went straight to his head, making him hyper-aware of every inch of naked, unclean skin. Unbeknownst to him, Lockdown looked at him for a long minute before leaning down and kissing his shoulder, traveling lower with his rough hands on Prowl's side.

The younger man's breath caught once, then twice. Each touch or light kiss sent out ripples of heavy, choking nausea: the discordant result of feeling and trying not to. Exhaling sharply, Prowl dug his hands into the sheets to keep from shoving the older man off as every nerve screamed to do, but when Lockdown derailed his march towards the inevitable to rise and carefully kiss his neck again, Prowl couldn't contain himself.

"No."

Lockdown stopped; Prowl flinched away, looking up at the ceiling without thinking. In the end, throat tight, he said the first thing that would get that horrible white weight off of him.

"Just… finish it."

He knew immediately, even before it left his mouth, that he had made a mistake.

"Finish it?" The mattress squeaked roughly as Lockdown righted himself, suddenly looming over the young man, white arms glowing in the dark. "What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"Nothing," Prowl snapped instinctively, a 'caught' rush of heat prickling hard under his skin. He pushed himself to the side, heart pounding, words tangling on his dry tongue. Anything to defuse whatever was about to happen. "I do not… I am tired—"

"And I'm tired'a your goddamn excuses," came the growl above him. Prowl exhaled sharply when Lockdown grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him flat to the bed again, pinning him at the arms. "I asked you a question, kid."

"There is nothing wrong with me," Prowl grit out after a tense second, incapable of accepting the fact he was being _restrained_. Lockdown only glared, hands tightening.

"'Scept for the fact you look like you're about ready to crawl out of your skin whenever I lay a finger on you. You nearly fuckin' slapped me when I touched you outside. That the reason you've been workin' so late all the time? So you won't have to _get it over with_ more'n you have to?"

"It is coincidence. Nothing more," Prowl responded coolly, moving his wrists only slightly before narrowing his eyes, full arrogance—a replacement for his glasses, now on the bedside table--finally settling on his fine features. "You are rarely present in any case. Now let go of me. I want to sleep."

"First you tell me why the hell you slapped me off today. I barely touched you."

"I did not—"

Prowl bit his lip before he lied. He had struck out against the other man, that much was fact—even if Lockdown had no idea of the instinct of it, the inexplicable fear. But why? He would have been within his rights if Lockdown had done something sexual, something outrageous and shameful, but he hadn't. It had been neutral at best and platonic at worst.

Try as he could, the only thing Prowl could remember about the moment before he struck out was the open road, right next to the field. Cars passing. People gawking.

"Anyone could have seen," he said at last, throat tight.

"And that's a problem?" Lockdown demanded.

When Prowl just turned his head, mouth shut tightly, the older man's expression darkened, uncomprehending. Then, in the wake of the kid's silence—he expected a quick answer, defensive at best—and the sight of his pretty eyes pinned on the wall, the full weight of it hit him. Lockdown's throat tightened immediately; he had to take a deep breath before he could speak.

"Fuck. I see how it is."

It was cute, at first. The way he'd hide himself in the sheets, embarrassed at everything from his rumpled hair to his sticky skin. Now, after spending afterglows with the kid's head on his cooling chest, the recent jerky turn-away into the sheets made Lockdown feel like there was an anvil waiting above him. Aloof nature be damned, he knew Prowl was avoiding what he'd just done. Avoiding him.

That pissed him off. He was nothing to be ashamed of. More so, this had happened to him before.

More than once, even, and always for the same fucking reason.

"I see how it is. All of this. You'll take it, but you won't ask for it. You're too good to admit it," he sneered, voice rough and growing rougher word by word. A dangerous heat began to rise from his skin. "You want me to _make_ you roll over—I'm guessin' so you don't have to admit to yourself that you're a fag."

The word burned, igniting the panic that had built in Prowl's sore chest. His first thought, desperate and messy, was _I'm not a_—but the word was white-hot even in his mind and he short-circuited, whole body suddenly bursting with the fear of being pinned and captured. The space between him and Lockdown was small and hot with his rapid breaths. He was suffocating.

"I have no idea what yo—get off of me. Now," Prowl demanded, voice brittle.

"Now how do you wanna play this off? You wanna accuse me of makin' you gay, you go ahead and do it. I'm three fuckin' inches away from kickin' you out anyways--make it easy for me. Go on."

"Lockdown."

"Say it or I'm not movin'."

Prowl said nothing, focusing only on controlling his breathing and the burn of his neck; making himself invisible against the dark sheets like prey before a predator. The two stared at one another for a long moment before Lockdown snorted, face twisting in unfamiliar scorn.

"Nothin'? Then I guess nothin's wrong. Guess we'll just keep on," he growled thickly, eyes burning through him. "So what do you want me to do to you, kid?"

It was dangerously open-ended, but Lockdown's reddish eyes said what he expected more than his words could—and what he wanted was cruel. Lockdown wanted him to degrade himself, to verbally admit that he wanted something indecent. He would not. He could not.

Something would break if Prowl admitted that weakness, that sin. Patience spent, fear overflowing, the very idea made him push upwards forcefully enough that Lockdown grunted, but the push was returned so fiercely the younger man hissed. Adrenaline hit him like a cold-water bath when Lockdown leaned down near the side of his face, breathing as hard as he was.

"You don't hafta be gay to like bein' fucked," he rasped into his ear, grip so tight it made his tiny bird-bones creak. "So what'll it be? You want me to fuck you, kid?"

"_Get off_, Lockdown!"

His voice cracked and, for the first time, Prowl felt the other man's bulk for what it was: pure muscle and white threat. He twisted away with a cry when Lockdown squeezed hard enough to hurt him and roared inches from his face, rage tangible:

"Say it! What do you want me to do to you?!"

The noise—the words, the sound, the rage—stunned Prowl. In that moment, all the anger and all the heat seemed to mist upwards, leaving him with nothing—nothing—but coldness and nausea and shallow breaths. The room was utterly quiet, utterly dark; Lockdown breathed harshly above him, eyes locked on him. No escape. Prowl couldn't feel his arms anymore. Couldn't feel himself anymore, with all the guilt rotting him from the heart outwards.

Finally, feeling that emptiness crash with his exposed skin, Prowl closed his eyes and gave up.

"Please tell me that it isn't… sick to be this way."

His voice cracked again; he bit it back with a shivering breath and felt the prickling at his eyes, the wrenching urge to scream it out until it dissolved into sobs.

_Please tell me this isn't wrong. Please tell me I can be happy with a man and it will be sincere, be real._

But it was more than that, much more. It was both a crushing fear and the only thing that could save him, redeem all of him. While he lay there, Lockdown's hands had gone loose, and that let Prowl open his eyes and swallow against his tight throat. It let him look up into the blank face of the man he loved, who was now looking at him like he didn't even understand why the shivering boy was in his bed.

"Tell me that you are not… using me for this. Please," Prowl whispered, shaking his head slowly. "That you—you feel something for me. Anything. Please tell me this means… something to you."

His heart throbbed once, painfully, having finally purged the real hurt—the question that had torn at him more than any moral dilemma. The pressure disappeared from his wrists, but his eyes were too wet to see Lockdown as anything more than a white blur as the older man backed away. In a moment he was off the bed, standing nearly against the wall; the distance lay dark and heavy between them, absolutely silent.

Prowl reached for him only once, hand outstretched, then crumpled onto the old bed, all strength gone to ashes as the hell of his life took him over.

There were no warm hands on his back, no more touch to keep him anchored to this world. The door creaked and Prowl was left alone to sob for the first time in years, drawing his knees up to his chest and expelling the toxins of a lifetime with gasps and chokes, vision liquid with warm tears. He sobbed until it hurt, small frame jerking with the force of it.

He cried because his last memory of being touched was by a young woman whom he had hurt, who played flute and wrote for the school paper and looked down with wet eyes whenever he walked by her in the hallways. He cried because of the way the older students had snickered at the arrogant look on his face, made clownish by the plum swelling of his eye—the injury no one, even his mother or father, had ever cared enough to ask about.

He cried because he had never had friends before, never had a safe place before, and he felt that emptiness threaten again in that dark room and its empty bed. He cried because he had never allowed himself to cry before and never thought himself capable of falling in love, and, now that he had, he was ruined.

Everything was ruined.

* * *

The porch door banged open, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet midnight. Lockdown stalked down the steps, mangled white body glowing in the dark. Feet planted on the frost-laced ground, he faced the empty field for a moment, shuddering, then turned and slammed his fist into the side of his house. Sucking in air through his bared teeth, he managed three more booming impacts before all strength left him, sapped by a sudden burst of freezing wind. Cut down to his bones, he slid down the wall, ending with his naked back against the prickling wood, dead grass biting into his legs.

After a few moments, Lockdown put his head in his hands and shook as wetness coated his black-inked cheeks.


	37. Breaking Point

Breaking Point

* * *

The second day Lockdown didn't come home, Prowl got the final phonecall from the Nakodo.

After sitting and nodding as though the man could see him, the young officer repeated the time and date he was expected to arrive at the office, hung up and carefully put his cellphone back on the coffee table. He stared at the small black contraption and felt no anger, no resentment: no nothing. He put no thought on the fact that the garage was empty, as was the house, and, when he opened it in a haze to reach for his uniform and simply _continue_, the top clothing drawer he shared with Lockdown had been messily gutted.

Standing barefoot in the dark bedroom, Prowl had stared at the few wrinkled shirts left on the bottom and felt as though someone could drop a pin in him and hear it echo for days.

But with no emotions to confuse him, logic was once again his only resort. He had an appointment. There was no choice but to go to the Nakodo, and no point in backing out now.

If he were lying in a ditch, the emergency contacts in his wallet would need to be relevant—and the idea of forsaking his family ties altogether was too extreme. One by one (the house sat empty around him and his wrists and head still ached) his ties were dropping away. In the end, the only real assurance someone wouldn't leave you was common blood. He couldn't lose the one real stability he had.

Prowl trudged through every hour with his eyes on Wednesday, five pm; he made himself dinner every night and got into an empty bed afterwards with no thoughts on the matter.

Days, and no word. He didn't know what to think of Lockdown at that moment, so he simply didn't think. Only half of him—the half that had _learned_—could feel the dangerous weight of the grey wall in his mind, but that half was eclipsed by the urge not to feel. At least not until after the meeting. At least not until his father was out of the city.

The preternatural grey calm only wavered when he sat in the stylish but uncomfortable chairs in the sun-washed 'parlor' portion of the Nakodo's office, where the man himself sat in an opposite chair, describing Prowl's arithmetically-derived match with great vigor.

Her name was Nightbird. She shared his interest in martial arts and hailed from a relatively conservative background similar to his own. Of course, she loved TV, but surely they could work around that. Right? Of course, right.

After a light knock (and a pleased flourish from the Nakodo), Nightbird entered the office. She was dressed in trim slacks and a blouse, glossy black hair cut to her doll chin. Full Japanese, face both regal and traditional. She smiled at Prowl, modest lip gloss shining. Leading her over by her tiny hand, the Nadoko made a few more assurances, putting bows on their arrangement, and suddenly they were alone.

Prowl made no move to get up and greet her. Nightbird watched him somewhat nervously, then moved with over to a chair and sat down, ankles crossing instinctively.

"Hi."

His only response was a nod. He did not trust himself to anything else. After a moment, she bit her lip, trying to reclaim her smile of earlier.

"This is a little… weird, isn't it?"

"Yes," he managed at length, voice strained as he picked at his sleeve button. He took a deep breath, staring out the window. "Arranged marriages in this day and age…"

"Not that you're jumping the gun or anything," she joked, grin faltering when Prowl simply looked at her, face drawn beneath his glasses. "I mean… this is just a date. A really scientific date, but a date."

He nodded. He had forgotten.

"Where do you want to… ah, go for dinner?" she asked, then glanced down and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I'd suggest sushi, but you know. I don't want to make this a theme party."

"I have a pasta shop I'm fond of," Prowl said somewhere outside of himself, as if levers were being pulled and his mouth moved in response. The hard metal bars were not at all connected to the shocked lump of a man under his skin, the man who had sat and fumed as a certain grinning drag racer refused to give himself up to his unimaginable wit and investigatory skill at that same pasta shop. She nodded, brightening.

"Italian, okay."

"Yes. Italian," he said softly, and got up to open the door for her like a polite date should.

They sat inside to escape the February cold: the interior was warm and brown and pleasantly crowded, the yellow lamps hanging low enough to knock their heads on. Once their napkins were settled, it was as though the date had officially begun. Assuming he had a quiet nature, Nightbird started several conversations and finished them by herself, holding up remarkably well with only the occasional positive or negative sound from the withdrawn man seated across the table. He gave verbal answers only when necessary, hidden eyes pinned somewhere beyond her at all times as his mouth thinned further and further.

Prowl made it through three different subject matters and a halting description of his own profession before he stuck his fork into his steaming pansotti—the same thing he always ordered, even when courting criminals--and it all fell apart. What was he doing?

He could answer that he was fulfilling his father's requirements, as simple as the confessional. But this wasn't just a scientific date: it was an incredibly expensive scientific date. Nakodos were the last resort of the well-moneyed who desired to preserve the tradition, culture and the dwindling Japanese population that had occurred since the American 2031 immigration law came into effect. Sitting there, eyes locked on the table in front of this strange woman who had so much in common with him and yet he could never _be_ with, Prowl was wasting more of his father's money: the only thing the man ever valued.

What was more, his father would approve if he married this girl—why? Just because she was Japanese. Just because she was a woman, capable of producing children, Prowl could decide to marry her _this instant_, after half an hour in her company--a decision so quick and insane even a rash person would question it--and his father would only nod and give his approval.

Dai did not once think about his personal happiness. As Prowl had proved himself a sinkhole of failed obligations, there was only one part of him that was salvageable to the older man: his genetic material. He was not a person to his father but a strand of DNA and a dislocated surname, shameful and incapable of redemption.

And even then, what would he gain? Even if he crumpled and obeyed Dai until the end of his days, they would never be family. His father had no pride, no affection, only commands and expectations. He would be tolerated and despised for the simple fact that he did not _submit_ naturally, that he was not _perfect_—and yet, now, he denied himself for sake of that joyless kneeling position.

If he obeyed his father today, Prowl knew this quiet, doomed dinner would only be the beginning. He would bear it, to stay within Dai's circle, then he would suffer another infraction and yet another, and then another. He would capitulate, just like the confessional—he would start to _believe_, just like after the confessional--only the stakes would cruelly rise every time.

One day he would find himself married to a woman like this, simply because the idea that Dai, his father, was ready to discard him all along was too much to take.

"Prowl? Are you alright? You, uh—look a little sick."

It ended here.

"I have to go. I'm—I apologize, I have to go," Prowl said suddenly, eyes wide beneath his glasses as he stood up so fast the chair screeched. He reached for his wallet and, fingers slipping and trembling, pulled out thirty dollars and flung it on the table. He did not look at the open-mouthed young woman on the other side of it. "This has nothing to do with you."

"Prowl, what?"

"I apologize."

"What do you mean, you _apologize_? You were supposed to clear your schedule for at least three hours," she exclaimed, standing when Prowl only looked out the door, reaching for his leather jacket. "What could possibly—hey! You aren't even looking at me! What's the matter with you?"

"You would not understand," he said into his collar, pocketing his wallet again. He turned to go and stiffened when Nightbird physically grabbed him across the table, elegant eyes blazing.

"What can you possibly tell me that would excuse your rudeness?" she hissed, low enough that their gawking neighbors couldn't hear. Prowl shrunk slightly under the expert grip, shocked as much by her boldness as the strength of it. "You know how goddamn expensive these matching sessions are, Atlas. You think I'm just going to let you walk without an explanation? I'll tell you right now, the only thing could possibly get you out of this is if you're either Chinese or you're gay, and you're definitely not Chinese."

All remaining color dropped from his face. He looked at the woman, expression growing more nauseated by the moment as she simply _waited_, glare both ironclad and ruthless.

"I have to go," he said at last, voice horribly faint.

She let go of him immediately, as if the weakness that suddenly flooded him had seeped into her hand. Her face lit with understanding and Prowl, cowed, immediately dropped his eyes. Afraid of what she would say.

"Oh god. I'm—god. I'm sorry. Really," she said softly. She put her hand over her mouth, face white, and all of the anger—something, he would learn, that was easy to rise in the woman and came to be a little endearing after five years of friendship—was suddenly gone. After a moment, she lowered her hand, brows knitting. "Why are you even… here?"

He was about to leave, but the question caught him. Slowly, his hands went slack on the front of his jacket.

"My father forced me. He wants me to get married," Prowl said, swallowing heavily. He felt defenseless and childlike in that moment, consumed with the want of hearing _this is wrong_ from someone else—and, when he looked up, Nightbird's aghast face was just what he needed. "He doesn't… care to whom."

"That is… that's horrible." She stared at him, expression painfully conflicted as if she just couldn't understand it, then swallowed and nodded. Her tight smile told him to _be brave_ and she touched his arm gingerly. "I'll tell them it just didn't work out."

"Thank you," he whispered, staring at her for a second before giving her a nod and pushing out the door into the cold Detroit air—towards his hiccupping motorcycle and towards _home_.

* * *

Lockdown woke up to the slam of the front door, immediately sitting upright in a pile of dusty work clothes and rumpled sheets.

After a moment, he laid back down in his bed. He knew who it was; the sharp footsteps said it well enough. It was practically the reason why he'd been sleeping. Sleeping was the only thing that kept him from tearing his mind in half over the kid.

He could sleep well enough on the gal's couch, which was where he'd been bunking for the past few nights, but he still managed to think about things. He'd never been one for thinking, simply because it made shit so much harder. Lying awake in the silent chai-scented apartment, Lockdown had to think about what was going to happen next—and what he was going to say when it did.

He was not imaginative, so he couldn't mentally render the inevitable argument in the painful detail it deserved, but he also could never come up with anything to say that would make—or let--Prowl stay. Every scene ended with him storming out, if he hadn't already packed his bags. If he didn't already hate him. More often than not, when faced with an empty second, Lockdown just relived that eviscerating moment when the kid started shaking like a leaf and asked him that awful question. Or the way Prowl reached for him. The ghost tremors were enough to sap the older man of anything, even hunger. Now he was out there.

When the silence in the house reached a deafening level, Lockdown forced himself to his bare feet and walked into the living room, rubbing one hand over his face. When he reached the doorway, he breathed out and actually looked—but where he expected to find Prowl on his feet, sunglasses glinting above a sneer with a full cardboard box in hand, the kid was doubled over on the couch, breathing too fast to be healthy.

His glasses sat on the table, harmless-looking as ever.

After a long, watchful silence, Lockdown stepped around the magazine-strewn coffee table and slowly sat down next to the younger man, who showed no sign of noticing him. The dockworker put a hand on Prowl's back as gently as he could, bearing his immediate flinch as though it were just penance. Kid deserved to be afraid of him, after what he did. When Prowl made no move to jerk away or speak, Lockdown took a deep breath and bowed his head.

Had to make use of all that thinking.

"I was outta my head the other night," he began roughly, speaking into his lap. He clenched his eyes shut for a moment as something like nausea gnawed at his empty stomach. "Didn' mean t'yell at you. Didn' mean t'…"

Beside him, Prowl took a shuddering breath and shook his head. It could have meant no—indeed, Lockdown braced to get up and leave him alone, realizing that tears were actually worse than the screaming match he had anticipated and his courage had limits—but it was not. While Prowl's memory of fear was still strong and still intimately connected to big white hands, it was bulldozed by the aftershocks of a realization twenty-four years in the making.

To Lockdown's shock, Prowl grasped for his big hand as if he couldn't stop himself, a half-sob slipping out. After a short scramble, Prowl fell onto the older man's muscled side and simply struggled not to cry, remaining hand pressed hard over his mouth.

"No matter what I do," he murmured into Lockdown's shoulder, small hand shaking in his, "No matter what I do, he will never…_ never_..."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he grunted, unnerved by the desperation in his grip and the disconnected words—and how _he_ could have provoked them. Of all the things Prowl could have screamed at him, this was not it. Equal parts urgent and confused, Lockdown took the young man's chin and raised it from his shoulder, looking into his pink-stained face. "Who'll never what?"

"My father."

"_What_?"

There was no more. Prowl hid his face again and shivered underneath the older man's hand, trying to hide every sniff and choke. Lockdown's face went blank and, as he finally realized this wasn't about them in the slightest, he reached over and shifted so he could press Prowl tightly to his front, murmuring something gruff and nonsensical into his hair.

The young man's arms looped around his neck and Lockdown held him for the first time and let him cry quietly, as he should have five nights ago. Sheltered, Prowl cried for the second time in a week, more than he had in five years, because strength would come later—and yet this was strength in and of itself, admitting a truth that had been hanging over his head since he was born.

Dai would never love him, no matter what he did. To deny the truth was to give it the power to conquer. Now, for the first time, Prowl was being completely honest with himself—and once he started, he found he couldn't stop.

When he calmed enough to speak, Prowl finally purged the reasons why he had become so ugly towards his housemate—his _lover_--beginning with his father's arrival and spiralling with the confessional. He told Lockdown everything, down to the surges of causeless revulsion he felt, the self-hated and the confusion. He couldn't bear to see the older man's expression, but Prowl felt the shame of it double once Lockdown's arms tightened around him, human and trustworthy and the only thing he had ever found worthwhile—something he had been twisted into poisoning and fearing.

Lockdown simply let him speak until he was finished, rubbing his back if the silence stretched too long. At last, Prowl shook his head, tears gone, voice weak.

"He simply wants me to get married. He doesn't care to whom."

Lockdown's tongue was nearly bleeding from biting down all of his angry demands, riling at the idea of it as more and more details came to light. All the events and horrible stifling changes of the past week fell into place with awful immediacy. Lockdown could hardly keep the fury from going straight into his tight white arms, from crushing Prowl even as he held him. But the skinny, shivering weightlessness of the young man in his lap sapped it from him quickly enough, leaving him only with regret and an iron direction.

One man had wrecked Prowl, nearly ruining them in the process, and Lockdown wanted nothing more than to take a rifle to that man's temple. He kept from saying so only by taking a deep breath, steadying himself. Anger wouldn't help Prowl now.

"Thass' alright, kid," he muttered softly, more softly than he ever had. He kissed the young man on the mouth and held his face close, one hand heavy and protective on his back. "F'he wants you to get married, that means you'n me can get hitched and it'll be fine. Then I can kill him and we can bury the fucker together."

"D-don't say—_don't_," Prowl said tensely, tightness of his throat threatening tears again. The sheer tone conquered the older man in a way he couldn't fathom and, as he held Prowl closer still, he knew where he stood in the world for the very first time. He knew where he was needed.

"Mean it, kid. Quit it. It's okay. It'll all be okay."

They were just comforting murmurs, something to get him to quiet down and quit hurting, but then he kissed the young man's cheek and dragged his hand through the hair at the back of his neck and _said_ it, pressing their foreheads together.

"Love you."

Prowl froze against him. The first thing to regain movement were his hands, quivering on his shoulders; the second was his head, which he shook insistently, shrinking away from Lockdown. Lockdown caught his chin, half-wounded by the fear and disbelief radiating from him.

"Naw. I mean it," he mumbled, knowing even as Prowl drew a tremulous breath that he still needed to pay his dues for what he'd done in the bedroom. He braced himself and nosed into his lover's neck. "M'sorry about yellin' at you. And I lied about wanting to kick you out. I was just… nuts. Said stupid shit. So don't leave. Stay. I'll do… fuckin' anything to make you stay, kid. Mean it."

Prowl finally drew back enough to look at the other man, and what he saw in Lockdown's tattoo-marred face was enough to drive him back into his shoulder, wrapping his arms around Lockdown's barrel chest twice as tightly.

"I never intended to treat you that way," he managed, last of the putrid shame finally fleeing him as Lockdown shook his head.

"That wasn't you. That was your old man."

A hesitant nod was all it took, and there was silence between them—the old, comfortable kind of silence that could be sat in for hours at a time, void of expectations or judgment. Relief eddied through both of them as though they were a circuit, finally allowed to connect with one another again and blast through the dark obstructions in their hearts and minds. Body heat was once more the balm for any wound and Prowl's very skin was honest, asking him why he had ever doubted this.

After a while, Lockdown nosed his face up; Prowl sniffed and looked down and away, already self-conscious about his total loss of control. Then, once he caught himself thinking it, he forced himself to face Lockdown and smile slightly, even if the other man's expression was anything but happy.

"I'll fix it. Gonna fix it all for you, darlin'," he rumbled suddenly, tone so serious it made Prowl still.

After a moment of nothing more—no explanation or sudden lightening of mood, just reddish eyes staring into his--Prowl curled into his lover and let himself be held again. He was so exhausted by the day's events that it took little more than an arm around his shoulders to get him to close his eyes, finally feeling safe and anchored to his life and everything in it... regardless of who he had to be rejected by to achieve such bliss.

Dozing off, he could not see Lockdown staring out at the porch door, a look equal parts dark and determined on the older man's face as his hand trailed protectively over his shoulders and neck.

"You just wait. I'll fix it."


	38. After the Storm

A/N: Yay, wind-down time! Thanks for reading, guys. Just thought I'd take time out to say that you're genuinely awesome~~

* * *

After the Storm

* * *

However long he had been shutting himself away and depriving them both of needed physical contact, Prowl was certain he and Lockdown more than made up for it from the moment he woke up from his doze.

After stretching within Lockdown's solid arms, he kissed the older man once, just to feel it, then simply couldn't stop. Within minutes, they were tearing at each other, hardly drawing breath to kiss for all the urgency under their skin. Prowl didn't even protest being carried to the bedroom like a bride, far too entangled in trying to relieve Lockdown of his shirt _while_ being carried practically atop it.

A few hours later, the sun was long-gone and a single lamp illuminated the bedroom in humble yellows. Prowl's hair was tangled and mussed, mirroring the dark sheets lumped around them; every breath seemed to be a tiny sigh in the quiet. Lockdown had fallen asleep beside him, head close to his chest, and the simple contentment the younger man felt while drawing his fingers over the planes of the albino's chiseled body—tracing tattoos and porcelain muscles, encountering invisible scar after invisible scar—defied words. Too often he followed that touch with the relishing press of his cheek, which found Lockdown stirring and reaching for him like a drowsy lion with his huge white paws.

Soon enough, however, Prowl's dreamy smile faded. He continued drawing aimless patterns on his lover's back until he reached the line of the sheets, then stopped. At Lockdown's curious grumble, he sighed softly.

"This is not over."

"Yeah," Lockdown managed lazily after a minute, taking in a deep breath before scooting Prowl closer in the sheets, lecherous grin budding. "M'just gettin' started."

"No, I—" Prowl had to stop and smirk, shaking his head and rolling his eyes before sobering. He returned a hand to Lockdown's chest, touching him absently. "I meant my father."

As freeing as it was to decide upon something, to be sure and defined in one's path, he still had to clear the way for himself. His father would not leave him alone after this, and it would not be enough to simply refuse him—or rather, it would feel to Prowl as though he were hiding behind simple refusals. He was who he was. It wasn't so much an urge to trumpet it to the world as to simply stake his claim.

He had to make sure he never had to deceive anyone again, himself most of all… and that included informing his father.

Lockdown scowled immediately at the mere mention of the older man. He obviously didn't appreciate the reintroduction of the subject a mere four hours after they had just gotten over it. The urge to get up that very moment, put a pair of pants on and go kill the bastard was still mighty high on his priority list. The urge to do it without pants was even higher. Grumbling, he pulled Prowl yet closer, as if hoping to chase the idea out of him by sheer physical presence.

"Forget about him. He's nothin'."

"He will know I did not complete the meeting," Prowl explained, looking blankly at the shuttered window. "He will want to know why."

"Who cares? What does he matter?" When there was no answer, Lockdown propped himself on his elbow and briefly took the younger man by the cheek, forcing his eyes from the window and growling, "He's nothin' but trouble at this point, Prowl. Listen to me on this one."

"I need to tell him," Prowl responded, voice firm.

Lockdown grit his teeth and shook his head. To him, there was no point: he knew exactly how 'Mr. Atlas' would react to such a speech, especially if his sheer conservativeness was what caused Prowl to go insane while under his thumb. It was enough to accept the fact that your dad _would_ hate you—but to have it shoved in your face? Lockdown's dark expression remained unchanged when Prowl's small hand slid over his ink-marred shoulder.

"And I need you to help me."

He snorted immediately, glaring down at the sheets. Prowl continued staring at him—imploring him with those pretty uncovered eyes, dark and just the slightest bit scared—until he exhaled and rubbed at the back of his head, suddenly radiating an exhaustion that had nothing to do with his lack of sleep.

"Not gonna be able to hold myself back, kid. I know that," he mumbled.

It was an uncommonly mature statement, implying that he knew that physically harming Prowl's father was extremely out of the question, but the firm, _trusting_ grip on Lockdown's shoulder made it impossible for him to do anything but duck his head and growl an unhappy _okay, fine_.

He just shook his head when Prowl curled up next to him again with a certain desperate thankfulness, arm locked around his waist. The kid was already shaking from the sheer idea of confronting the bastard who spawned him, and Lockdown couldn't blame him. It felt like he himself was walking into a death trap, there was no question about it—but surprisingly, the threat of letting Prowl down was more motivating than anything a pissed-off Japanese father could dish out.

Well. Provided pissed-off Japanese father didn't bring his samurai sword. Couldn't say much to evisceration, but hopefully his reflexes were faster than the old man's. _Then_, at least, he'd have an excuse to deck him. Then crush his head in and throw him in the river behind the house and claim self-defense. Yep.

Prowl said his name softly. Caught in his thoughts, Lockdown made a sleepy sound to show he was listening, but when there was nothing more said, he looked down and found the kid watching him almost nervously. He wondered why until Prowl started speaking, then felt his gut lurch slightly.

"What you said, when—that night after I--"

The ugly scene that made him leave the house. Lockdown squeezed his shoulder to show he understood, tension spiking between them. Prowl wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the memory.

"You said I was going to blame you. For making me gay," Prowl said, throat tight. "Why would you… say that?"

Lockdown scowled and thought for a minute, rubbing his thumb across the young officer's shoulder, then cleared his throat.

"Had a few beaus before you. Always got to a point where they'd wanna leave. I could tell. Didn't care too much. But the way a good number of 'em did it was by prancin' in one day and tellin' me they weren't fa—"

He bit his tongue. Prowls fingers sliding over his collarbone was a quiet reward, his kiss a sincere thank you. Lockdown exhaled, if only to breathe in the other man's scent—comfort--when he inhaled again.

"That they weren't queer. 'Course they were. They were queer at birth and they're queer now, wherever they are. Thing is, some of 'em even blamed me for makin' em gay."

Prowl's skin went cold at the idea, the sheer cruelty of it. He watched the older man for anything more, for some kind of flicker of vulnerable emotion, but Lockdown was done. Anything else he had buried long ago, even if it was obvious that speaking of it wasn't pleasant.

It was the easiest out: in effect, it was the claim that you _couldn't_ love someone instead of saying you _didn't_ love them. These men, they assumed that Lockdown would react violently if they rejected him personally. They didn't know him, if so… but Prowl understood the fear, looking back on the way he couldn't even turn Lockdown away for fear of some kind of confrontation.

Now, Prowl had the clear feeling Lockdown would have respected any man who could leave him in an honest, straight-forward way, without any lies or histrionics. Having a partner lie about a sudden shift in sexuality must have been damaging—and to have it happen again and again? Lockdown must have guessed why it kept recurring. What was more, if people treat you like a monster, you tend to live up to their expectations. Or you just end up hating people.

"I apologize. That must have been painful," Prowl said huskily. Lockdown surprised him by huffing impatiently.

"I just shouldn't have thought you were tryin' to do it. You're way too smart for that." Lockdown leaned in and kissed him on his shoulder with a slight, sly grin. "F'you wanted me out, you'd pack my things and put 'em on the porch."

"But… it is your house," Prowl pointed out, one brow arched quizzically. Lockdown's grin widened and he kissed his lover on the mouth, ending with a teasing squeeze to his side.

"What can I say, you've got me by the balls."

Prowl stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, then he laughed, head falling back with the unexpected force of it. It was his first laugh in weeks and it felt wonderful. Lockdown's mouth suddenly pressing behind his ear, his hand tangling in his loose hair as the man himself rumbled in a timbre that could only be described as _adoring_… that was another level of wonderful, natural and giving and real.

Still, as Lockdown pressed him back against the pillows with a smug, thoroughly _recovered _smile, Prowl couldn't help but think about the other men. For the first time, they were more than just nebulous figures. They had names and actions, and he had to wonder what they had meant to Lockdown, be there three or four or eight of them, or even twenty.

It was egotistical to think he was the only one Lockdown had ever cared for. He didn't feel threatened—how could he, with everything that had happened?—but still. Was it always a string of one-night stands, or something more?

Had Lockdown slipped into a relationship with them the same way he had with Prowl, suddenly realizing that they were moved in with him and never asking for anything more official than sex? And what about the sex, for that matter? Was sex something universal—a general collection of physical stimuli that culminated in a singular physical reaction? Or was there a scale—if so, how did he compare?

"You got somethin' else on your mind, sweet thing?"

With a jolt, Prowl realized he had stopped moving—or at least stopped _responding_ to the man above him—and shrank a little into the mattress, embarrassed that Lockdown had noticed. It was too soon yet to be losing interest in _real_ sex over hypothetical sex… and yet the look the other man offered him was not accusing in the slightest, just flavored with a little _a'course you would_. After an expectant silence, Prowl took a breath, wondering how to phrase exactly what he wanted to know.

"You have had… encounters before. Sex for the sake of sex," Prowl began slowly, hand pressed to his lips. He looked ready to die from having to use the s-word twice in the same sentence, but still kept a steady gaze as he turned to Lockdown, expression almost concerned. "Is this anything like that?'

It was like Lockdown's chest was an aluminum can and someone had just crunched it inwards with a quick, naive swat. It wasn't as bad a sensation as it sounded, just a little strange and _emotional_, but it still left him with the urge to kiss Prowl until he couldn't feel his lips. He never quite forgot how he had been the only one Prowl had rolled with, if only because he was so goddamned gorgeous and it seemed impossible that no one else would have snatched the kid up before he did, but it hit him doubly hard at that moment and made him want to show Prowl why he should stay.

He settled for pawing through Prowl's tangled hair as he just breathed the other man in--all of his fragileness and alien doubts.

"No, darlin'. Ain't anything like this. It's a world apart," he murmured, still petting his hair.

Eyes closed, the older man surprised himself by actually thinking—genuinely puzzling—over what he was going to say next. It was true, sex was different with the passerby, but it was as though something more than red blood was rushing through him when Prowl was underneath him. He just couldn't find the proper words for it, or the certainty that he wanted to say it aloud. When the silence stretched on too long and he knew Prowl was waiting for him to say something, he drew back a little, kissing Prowl and thumbing his cheek.

"It's fun to knock boots. You… it's like I'm on a cat-walk a thousand miles up and you make me go cross-eyed. I don't even know what's up or down."

"You mean to say that I embody intense disorientation and a risk of death." Prowl's slight smirk gave way all-too-quickly under the other man's simple smile. He cleared his throat and ducked his head, suddenly floored with unexpected shyness. "I am flattered… I think."

"You'd better be," Lockdown growled suddenly, nipping his exposed neck and eliciting a bitten-back yelp. "Poetry like that ain't cheap in my book."

Prowl snorted slightly and lay back against the pillows, toying with a strand of his loose black hair—a new gesture birthed only by his utter comfort and regained happiness.

"Well, what do I owe you?"

"I can think of a few things," Lockdown began lazily, then rolled atop him and licked a ridiculously long stripe up his chest, grinning like a tiger. "But I'm takin' em in installments. So lay back and call in sick in advance tomorrow, 'cos this is gonna take a while."

It was then that Prowl had his second laugh in weeks, even if it was underscored with slight trepidation that the activities of the previous three hours had earned in full—and he knew that, no matter what happened with his father, he would still have Lockdown.


	39. Clarify

A/N: Dear Santa. Can you bring me a Lockdown to love and protect me and sling around southern slang while doing so? Thank you and please write back about possible shipping dates, as I am very impatient. Love, D

Also, if you want to see how much of a dick-face Dai truly is, head over to my Deviantart and look for a piece named Rosanna Rosanna. Shoddily done, yes, but quite enlightening.

* * *

Clarify

* * *

Lockdown called in sick to work that Friday afternoon. The two of them rode together in the growling musclecar, with Prowl holding tight to his boyfriend's arm the entire way. Even when they reached the hotel, Prowl dug in at the last second and asked him in a hoarse whisper to make another circle round the block. Trying to talk him out of it one last time only seemed to give the kid the strength he needed to let the car slide into the 1-hour-parking slots in the hotel's garage and chug to a stop.

With a quick check at the desk, they found out his father's room was 523. Lockdown suggested they check 666 just in case. Prowl did not smile.

An elevator and a cleaner-scented hallway later, Lockdown stood with Prowl as he knocked on the door, caught between hoping the bastard wasn't home so they wouldn't have to do this _today_, and hoping he _was_, so that he wouldn't ever have to drive Prowl here to try it again.

The door opened. Prowl's father wore his shirtsleeves and tie and, upon seeing them, a shocked expression, one hand still on the door. Obviously, he thought any visit should have been prefaced with a call, even an undesirable visit. After glaring briefly at Prowl, Dai Atlas stepped into the hallway and looked with confusion and disgust at the man standing tall next to his son. Lockdown could feel his every crass tattoo being picked apart, his entire ramshackle appearance labeled undesirable, but his stance did not once flicker.

Already, he could tell this wasn't going to be within three miles of pretty.

"Ask this man to leave," Dai ordered, disdainfully flicking his reading glasses off of his nose.

"No."

Dai's eyes switched from Lockdown to his son, one brow rising a dangerous degree, but Prowl only returned the hard stare.

"I need to speak to you."

"And you may do so without him."

"No, I cannot," Prowl stated calmly. He paused to take a deep breath, shutting his eyes for a moment—feeling in full the constant warmth of the man beside him before he spoke. "I do not expect you to understand, Father, but this is for my benefit, not yours. However, I still ask you to be civil and listen to me."

Dai looked at him coldly but did not move to interrupt him. Taking his hands from his pockets, Prowl gestured to the tattooed ruffian to his left.

"This is Lockdown. I have been… living with him since November."

"I do not care for the details of your living arrangements. They do not pertain to me in the slightest," his father snapped when the silence between them stretched on, offering no further explanation. He leveled a hand at Lockdown with barely-contained impatience. "You will leave now. I have something important to discuss with my son."

"What you have to discuss with me is the fact I failed to accede to your wishes and find a suitable woman to marry," Prowl said, voice as hard as his uncovered eyes. The glasses were back at the house, no matter how badly he knew he would want them. He bared his teeth, fighting for his honesty. "I know what you wish to say and I accept my noncompliance—but I will say that I did not go through with it because I am already in a relationship."

Dai obviously wasn't used to being told what he was about to say. His expression communicated how stunned he was at his son's rudeness, much less tone, but what Prowl said did not escape him. He moved to speak, possibly to ask him why he lied, when his eyes widened to see the other man's big hand move to cup his son's hip,

"What are you—remove your hand from him _immediately_."

When the white-skinned man just glowered at him, Dai could only help but realize that he had no power over him. No matter if the hallway was empty, the scene might as well have been playing out in a crowded street: bristling, Dai looked to both sides to see if anyone was watching, then turned to Prowl, who was standing strong and content in the grip of the older man.

"What do you mean, coming here with this person? And what is this relationship you failed to tell me about?"

"This person is my partner," Prowl said firmly, moving his hand to cover the one on his hip. "And the relationship is ours."

For a moment, his father simply stared at him—not the two of them, but only Prowl. He began to breathe faster, then finally cleared his throat, muscling himself into an upright position.

"No. Absolutely not. It is impossible," he said stiffly. He closed his eyes, passing his hand over them, then turned on the man who still held his son, voice giving a betraying tremble. "You. This is the last time I will tell you to leave before I call security."

"I haven't done shit," Lockdown growled, giving a jerk of his head. "Prowl ain't done talkin' with you, either, so sit your ass down."

"How _old_ are you?" Dai demanded after a moment, tone dripping with overwhelming disgust as he looked the other man up and down once more.

"Old enough to be his dad—only difference is, I actually give a shit about him."

His father's horrified stare only doubled; he put up his hand again, as if to block the other man from existence, shaking his head.

"This is some disgusting joke. I refuse to believe this."

Prowl opened his mouth to speak, but Lockdown stepped forward instead, pushing Prowl behind him.

"So what bothers you more, chief? That I'm screwin' your boy or that there's more to it than that?" he asked roughly, huge white arms braced to either side as he took a step forward; Dai took a mirroring step back, recoiling as if the other man were diseased. "Cos I'm pretty sure I'm wastin' yer time, and I know yer wastin' mine, but if you try to dick with Prowl one more time, I swear to God I'm gonna strangle you with that fancy tie you got on."

"Lockdown—" Prowl said tensely, a terrible feeling rising in him. He reached for the huge man with definite urgency, but froze when his father snarled his name, pointing a finger at him.

"Prowl Atlas, step away from him. Now."

"Do not speak as though you own me," Prowl retorted, forcing himself to step even with Lockdown and grasp his arm; the very contact seemed to make his father flinch, his tension rising further as the two men stood together. "Though you may refuse to acknowledge it, I have made my decision. I am not a child."

"And you are not my son if you fail to see—"

At that claim, only half-spoken, Prowl's resolve quailed violently. Feeling him weaken, Lockdown quickly grabbed him by the waist, which produced an instant explosion in the man across from them. His dark eyes became wild as he reached for the two of them, hands clawed.

"Enough! Enough, get your filthy hands off of him!"

Dai yanked Prowl toward him and released him just as quickly, as though the younger man's very skin were oily with sickness. Lockdown rumbled threateningly, jerking as if struck, and glared down at the smaller man, daring him to make one more move of that kind.

"How dare you touch him like this in my presence. How _dare_ you mislead him. I will have you arrested for indecent assault," Dai hissed, lip curling. He glared up at the mammoth man almost hysterically, as if seeing him for the first time as the instrument of vice he was. "You did this to him, didn't you? Twisting his mind, drawing him into this—this perverted lifestyle—"

"This man is the one thing that has allowed me to be happy!" Prowl half-yelled, uncaring of the closed doors to either side as the sentiment forced its way out of him. "If you value my reproductive abilities over my happiness, then—"

"_Silence_."

Dai's deep voice was enough to stop any protests, fully-formed or otherwise. The hallway was hushed, Prowl's father frozen in place with his fists clenched. Lockdown watched him warily until he finally turned towards his son, looking at Prowl with hollow eyes.

"You are ill," he said. Dai moved as though to offer his hand, then looked at his son with thinly veiled disgust and let it fall back to his side, taking a shuddering exhalation. "There are facilities capable of reversing whatever this man has done to you. Come with me. I will right this."

"I am not ill and neither will I come with you," Prowl grit out, voice shaking as twenty-three years crested inside of him alongside nausea and hatred. He stared straight into his father's face, world narrowed to the man who, if given free rein, would have ruined him without a thought. "You thought I would collapse the moment you weren't there for force me to go to church, that living alone in a city would drive me to—to sin through sheer ignorance. You fully expected to pull me out of a gutter—but then, here is your gutter."

"I am gay. I've found a man I love, a man I'm living with. I work a low-paying job, I was recently demoted, my motorcycle is constantly verging upon mechanical death, I will never produce an heir and I am the happiest I've been in my entire life. What's more, I never would have realized it with your foot on my neck and if you believe that you can simply call me back—"

Prowl jerked as Dai snatched his thin wrist out of the air, pulling him a step closer with a half-wild expression on his aged face.

"I have never once struck you," he whispered, hand tightening on his wrist. "But I will if you speak in such a way again."

Prowl felt Lockdown move behind him and put out his remaining hand, halting the huge man where he stood. He radiated a quiet fearlessness, deep voice preternaturally smooth.

"I think God would have preferred to see you beat me daily as opposed to what you did to me. Myself and mother both. You are not who you think you are, if only because you believe yourself to be a true father and husband."

After a moment more of staring, Dai abruptly let go of his son's arm and stood silently in the hallway. Any man would mistake the expression on his face for regret or pensiveness, but Prowl knew the look of one somberly absorbing a truth.

"That you would even claim such a thing…" Dai began too softly, shaking his head. "You cannot fathom the shame I feel right now. I raised you to be a man and I come to find an animal where my son should be. An animal rooting proudly in its own waste."

It was final. Something had shut off inside of the older man and, no matter his determination, Prowl's throat tightened to see it: it was a knee-jerk response, that of a son being turned away by his father.

"How can you…"

His father put a hand up, immovable as granite. Instinctively, Prowl quieted himself, which only made the hallway perfectly silent for what Dai said next.

"You will never speak to myself or your mother again. If you refuse to recognize your illness, I refuse to be poisoned by it. Now leave."

As his son stared, the older man turned slowly and reached for the door to his room—only to be caught by a huge white blur that seized him by the collar and shoved him in.

Lockdown vaguely heard Prowl yelling for him to stop (through the rushing in his ears and the feel of his bastard father thrashing like a slimy catfish caught on a hook), but there was nothing on god's green earth that could have stopped him from slamming the door after himself and locking it, trapping the monster in with him.

The door rattled a few times, shuddering from Prowl's weight. Grunting, the old man tried to grapple with him, maybe reach for the nearest swingable object, but Lockdown instantly overpowered him. He slammed Prowl's father flat against the nearest wall, one hand—the real one that could _feel_—clamped tightly on his neck.

"My dad was like you," he rasped, hands tightening at the thought. He pushed upwards, hiking the older man further up the wall so Dai could stare down into his blazing eyes. "Said the only thing that'd be worse was if I was a nigger. I did everything I should'a, and nothing ever changed. He hated me all the way up until he died. All 'cos he gave me some fucked up genes and he didn't want to admit it was his fault, that anything like that could'a come from _him_."

The older man said something—wheezed it through the dockworker's grip on his throat—but Lockdown shook his head, pressing closer.

"And y'know what the sick thing is? He wants me to stop. You can hear him, can't you?"

Prowl pounded on the door mere feet from them, calling out the big man's name. Dai's eyes flickered towards the door; his fingers dug into the white hands that held him, body tensing.

"He still thinks you're worth somethin'. He still thinks you love him, somewhere in that fuckin' rattrap of a bigoted sinkhole in the middle'a you. I think you know better, don't you? You never loved him to begin with."

Lockdown snorted viciously, radiating forty hard years of rage and disgust.

"Men like you oughta be shot," he hissed, and raised his real fist high.

Prowl's father recoiled against the wall, a strangled sound escaping him, but the impact never came. Lockdown's fist hung in the air as if frozen. The door boomed ceaselessly, the only sound besides his rushing pulse. Prowl cried his name, pleading with him. At last, he lowered his arm and shoved Dai to make him open his eyes.

"You got your cell-phone on you?"

"You intend to mug me as well," he wheezed haltingly, face splotched with red.

"Empty your fuckin' pockets," Lockdown ordered, still holding him roughly against the wall. Another shove was all it took to get his hands moving, gutting his pockets. Cellphone, wallet, breathmints, then nothing.

Face grim, Lockdown let him fall back to the ground only to take him by the front of the shirt and drag him to the bathroom door. He opened it and bodily heaved Dai in, who fell on his side with a sharp grunt of pain but otherwise cleared the sink and the toilet. Lockdown slammed the door behind him and immediately grabbed a nearby vanity, shoving it up against the door and blocking him in.

The door-handle rattled almost immediately, increasing in urgency as it became apparent that the door would not give. Lockdown watched it rattle in its frame with a dark satisfaction as Prowl's father added more and more force. He only snapped out of it when the older man shouted something made unintelligible by the wood between them.

"You stay away from him, you hear me?" Lockdown shouted back, voice strangely tight as he slapped on the door and kicked the vanity. The threatening booms were enough to silence the other side. "Fuck knows how you made such a great kid, but he ain't yours anymore. If you aren't dead by the time they find you in there, get the hell outta town. Otherwise, I'll hunt you down and hand you your ass."

Turning, he walked out of the room, pushing Prowl out from behind the door, then took him by the hand and walked him out of the hotel before security could come to investigate the noise.

They made it to the garage before Prowl stopped in his tracks, digging his fingers into Lockdown's hand with a convulsive strength. When he looked up at his lover, his eyes were wide and horrified.

"What did you do?" he whispered, as if just realizing what they had walked away from.

"Nothin'," Lockdown answered, taking his other hand and trying to lead him along, into the car. Prowl had none of it. He stopped in his tracks and turned to grab the huge man's other hand, staring into his tattooed face.

"He is my father, no matter what happened now or then. I need to know, _what did you do_?"

"I told you, nothin'." When the panic in Prowl's face only increased, Lockdown muttered, "I locked him in the bathroom."

"You didn't—" he began faintly. Lockdown shook his head.

"Didn't touch him. Just took his cell-phone."

The maids would be around to help before anything became serious. Staring at him speechlessly, Prowl finally made a wordless noise of relief and clung to the huge man, so proud that he had held himself back. Bending down far enough to nose into his hair, Lockdown held him fiercely then walked him to the car, opening the door for him and punching it back home.


	40. Apologies

A/N: This will make a little less sense if you haven't been keeping up with Odd Moments, but suffice to say that Torque's been busy while the boys have been wrapped up in their upheavals. Also, it's hard being the BFF of a super machismo albino man who doesn't talk. She's pretty self-sufficient, but everyone has limits.

Everyone who thought of Rosanna after the previous chapter, realizing it wasn't quite over, I thank you for being so considerate. Dorkily enough, it really touched me. Emotional abuse is as scarring as physical abuse and we've all seen what a swell guy Dai is, so I promise it's not over.

Goopy stuff on AFFnet, soon to be followed by some crazy sexy action! And seriously guys, the fic is called Odd Couple on both sites: search function is your friend.

* * *

Apologies

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That Saturday, after Prowl made breakfast (and Lockdown watched every second of the process from over the young man's shoulder, lips permanently fused to the side of Prowl's soft neck) the two sat in comfortable silence on The Couch, simple coexistence unaided by the jabber of the TV or the partial shields of books. It was quiet and their plates were empty; the house was warm and Prowl's hand fit perfectly atop the older man's bare thigh, which seemed to finally assure each in turn that it was _safe_ once again.

This realization moved their thoughts from the close, survivalist cling about themselves to the world around them, like a pressurized chamber finally filling with a woosh of crisp outside air—otherwise known as perspective. The world had more people in it than them and possibly Prowl's father. And so, with a minimum of words and new room to breathe, both men jointly decided there was someone they had to apologize to for their ill behavior.

Spurred into action, Prowl immediately made twice-baked potatoes with (fake, _delicious_) bacon bits as a mercy gift and Lockdown waited for him in the car, padding at the horn playfully. The drive was almost half an hour through the frosty city, Detroit's warming skyscrapers sparkling at the tips, and by the end of it Prowl noticed Lockdown's prosthetic hand clenching at the gearshift _almost_ restlessly. His big thumb slid up and down the faux-chain wheel as he muttered at bad drivers, yanking them from lane to lane every so often.

When they pulled up to a clean, compact brick apartment complex, Prowl's developing intuition—how on earth had he gone from being completely incapable of empathizing with human beings at large to analyzing rare signs from a completely private man?—was what told him to fuss unnecessarily with his cell-phone, faking a missed call. No matter the ruckus it took to get there, this in turn found Lockdown entering Torque's small apartment by himself, both hands rammed in his nonexistent jean pockets.

It was a tightly-kept little place cast in low purples and greying blues, with a minimum of all-seasons decoration. White curtains shielded the mid-March sun. There were fresh daisy-like flowers on the counter, waxy green stalks just beginning to succumb to gravity, which struck him as a little odd, as the dancer never bought herself flowers. The couch Lockdown had slept on a bare week ago was piled high with a laundry rainbow of colors and textures. Dressed in a mint-green sundress, Torque was laying out clothes, fully absorbed in the task to the point where she apparently didn't hear him call at her from the entryway. Almost feeling like he was being ignored (but surely not), Lockdown creaked from toe-to-toe behind her for a moment before clearing his throat.

"Hey, gal."

"So now he's talking to me," she muttered without turning, head bowed. She reached down for another shirt, radiating apathy. Lockdown blinked at her as she just kept folding like nothing had happened, then took a step closer.

"Aren't you just a little bag'a snakes."

Her irritation was normal—this ritual of showing up at her doorstep after a long stretch of silence was nothing new. It was nothing to be nervous over, so Lockdown had the good grace to be startled when the younger woman turned with a genuinely burned expression on her face, brown eyes narrowed. Her hands, he could see, were clawed in a sweet white blouse.

"I have every right to be pissed, Lockdown. What the hell are you doing here again?"

"What?"

"You didn't pick up your phone for weeks. I must have left thirty messages for you, then you stomp in here at one am one night looking like someone took a potato peeler to your insides and even _then_ don't say why, then you disappear _again_. Not a note, no _nothing_, and you were gone from the warehouse on Friday when I tried to come see you."

"You know how it is."

It was all Lockdown could think to say, especially while trying not to growl it or tense his muscles, or draw back from the sudden attack.

"Yeah, and _it's_ been different since Prowl came into it!" Torque snapped, glaring back at him. "It's been better. You've come out with me and just… been with me. God forbid I get my expectations up, but I thought—god, I don't know, I called so many times I thought that you'd skipped town or something. And if you had, would you have even _stopped_ to say goodbye? What kills me is that I can't even—even _answer_ that question honestly!"

Torque, midway into hectically folding a pair of dark jeans, realized she had the seams wrong way out and chucked it onto the floor in a mixture of defeat and anger with a single barked _fuck_, cheeks ruddy. Then she took a deep, taxing breath and shook her head, leaning over and compulsively smoothing out a laid-out shirt.

"I've put up with a lot of shit before, and I know I can't stop you from wandering in and out like a fucking alley-cat _and_ I know that ten years in is a pretty piss-poor time to bring something like this up, but… you have to _talk_ to me. Tell me where you are, what you're doing. Let me know you're still alive, at the least. It's what friends do."

The living room fell utterly silent, just as perfectly organized and decorated as before she spoke and shook everything _else_ up. Lockdown just stared at her, somewhat bewildered from the force of her tirade. In all his years with her, never had an outburst been so fierce yet so precise—which made him wonder how long she had been sitting on it. When she glanced over her shoulder at him, his eyes were still wide and his mouth had fallen open slightly, as if something were cramping under his smooth ink-striped skull. She snorted.

"What, too much for you to process at once?"

"Jus' tryin to think up somethin' good enough to make you forgive me, I guess," he muttered, scratching at his neck and staring awkwardly at the almost-wilting flowers on the counter.

Torque's hands stilled. That was different. The directness was not, but usually a statement like that would have ended in 'something to make you shut up'. Torque blew out the breath she had been holding since three weeks ago and made herself close her eyes. He was there. He was safe. The decompression spread until suddenly she sagged on her bare feet, shaking her head with a definite hopelessness.

"You don't need to do that."

"Whaddya mean?" Lockdown asked, almost wary.

"I've… already forgiven you," she sighed into her laundry, as if dearly disappointed in her own lack of ire. "That's what friends do, too. They can't hold grudges very well."

Slowly, Lockdown let his gut unclench, feeling the storm-pressure leave the room. She gave him a dry, you-better-not-let-this-happen-again look then went back to folding, making a grousing noise.

"Why on earth do you have such a competent puppy-look when you're so inked up? It just doesn't make sense."

Lockdown wet his lips, watching her shake her head and push at her clothes—and knew she meant it. She had forgiven him, easy as that, when she was half-screaming at him but a spare minute earlier. The rapid change in emotions made him almost queasy, but something heavy and important built up inside of him, the same way it had with Prowl. That urge to _tell_ her something.

He could feel ten years sitting on his shoulders, connected to her own tiny frame and supporting them both from every direction--but mostly her supporting _him_, bringing Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and loaning him money and showing up at his door for nothing more than coffee and a joke or two and only shrugging when he said he didn't have the time. It was then he realized that, maybe, he could stand to think of her a little more.

"I'll do it."

"Hm?"

"Talk to you," he said tensely, sticking on every syllable. "About… things."

"That would be nice," she answered softly. Pausing, she turned to brush her hair behind her ear and gave him a smile. A pretty, real _I love you_ smile. "Thank you."

He nodded in return, and Torque found herself staring, almost wary for the intensity in his black-inked face. Something had changed about him. Something had changed, period. He was radiating a… plain _conscientiousness_ that she had never seen before. There was literally an epiphany in his face, sitting on his nose like it had been waiting for him to grow up.

Rattled, she cleared her throat and picked up a red dress, searching for something to break the _moment_ they just shared—one of three they'd had in an ungodly amount of years.

"Just don't go completely gay and call me crying about how your favorite singer lost at American Idol or something. If you do that, I'm divorcing you."

"Deal."

Torque heard Lockdown chuckle, and she smirked to herself, the last of her tension dissolving. Thankfully, it became just another fly-by visit; the pigmentless alley-cat dropping in for a dish of milk, which she had been keeping by the window for days. Both of them turned at a clear, curious 'Hello?' from the entryway, but Torque immediately threw down the clothes she was folding and met Prowl in the middle of her living room, throwing her arms around him.

"Oh, are you alright? I've been so worried about you!"

"Hello. Uh. Well." Prowl gulped and patted her back awkwardly, one hand holding the container of twice-baked potatoes. Trussed up so tightly against her chest, it took a few seconds for wonder to claim his expression as she continued to hug him as if he were going to disappear on the spot. "You… were?"

"Of course! You were—well, to be honest you were horribly rude to me, but you looked awful and you were acting even worse. I knew something was up but I didn't want to—oh, I wish I _had_." She pulled him to her again and hugged him tightly, murmuring, "Please tell me you're alright."

"Jesus, what's he done to get treated like that?" Lockdown demanded, throwing up his arms in half-honest exasperation when Torque gave the thin young man a huge smooch on the cheek, then glared up at the dockworker.

"I know you can take care of yourself, asshole. Prowl is more delicate."

"Delicate?" Prowl repeated incredulously, still far too close to her ample bosom. Thin though he may have been (and however harsh the contrast between he and Lockdown), he was still a man!

"Got 'im there," Lockdown drawled, flashing his incredulous boyfriend a rather smug smirk that only got worse when his inked brow crept up. "He hasn't even been able to sit down lately."

"What? Now why would he—aww, _seriously_?"

Torque wrinkled her nose in disgust, looking mightily disappointed in the big man grinning at her. Prowl caught her attention by clearing his throat, more in a bid to get their minds off of their (rather ridiculously rampant) sexual activities than anything else… although it did give him a good opportunity to free himself and get a good three feet of breathing space between them.

"Things have been rather… hectic lately," Prowl admitted nervously, trying to hide his weak flush by looking down and offering her the container of twice-baked potatoes: _I'm sorry_ in food-language. Torque stared, suspicious of his tone and perhaps the gift, then smiled and went to the couch and shoved all of her clothes off, patting the ridiculously plush cushions.

"Well, what have I been complaining about? Fill me in, from start to finish. And I expect some _really_ good excuses for what bitches y'all have been. Come on and give me those potatoes, I'll make tea."

Situated with a steaming cup of chai (he lost himelf in contemplating the exotic mug if just to buy time), Prowl haltingly told her of everything that had transpired since the cold December day that his mother called him. Always a man of few words, Lockdown sat with his customary beer and merely relived all of it with him, nodding at crucial points. He even seemed to learn some things when Prowl briefly delved into his home-life before he attended the Detroit Police Academy. The woman's heart secretly clenched—_convulsed_--to see the big man reach over and rub Prowl's leg when the younger man was having 'phrasing difficulties', particularly when it came to the night that had driven Lockdown into her apartment.

Now she understood why Lockdown had wandered in without a word or even sought refuge with her in the first place. Beforehand, she could never have dreamt of anything that would drive him away from his house, he loved the damn thing so much. Now, she knew—and could guess how the violent, blessed rearrangement of his priorities had given him that utterly _adult_ look she marveled at before. With Prowl, he was not a different person but a _finished_ person, and the simple sight was amazing.

When the two finished, the apartment stayed silent for a good minute or two as Torque sat and soaked all of it in: people she couldn't understand, things she couldn't even imagine.

"I can't believe anyone would do something like that. You're his _son_," she said at last, husky voice drained of anything but shock. "He just sounds so callous. Like he doesn't even know what life is like."

"I am certain he does not have the slightest idea," Prowl said solemnly, a little pale from exertion. The story had caught him up and forced him to finish it in excruciating honesty, adding in details he had never spoken aloud before. He took a sip of his tea, warming himself, and felt Lockdown's big hand on his leg again as an anchor to the world. A world where he had friends and people who loved him—boyfriends who petted his hand and dancers who missed him if he was gone for more than a week.

"If the bastard needs to get a life, maybe we could send him a present. Y'know, like a stripper or something," Lockdown suggested, looking expectantly over at Torque.

"Not saying it wouldn't cheer the guy up to have some boobs in his face, but I don't think they have built-in dancing poles in Travelodge." Torque admitted with the good grace of someone who's been ribbed over a thousand times—far too much to give her old friend more than a wry (and morbidly curious) look.

"Thought y'all carried collapsible ones round with you, just in case."

"Hawhaw."

"I am afraid you would be turned away on sight. He condemns as much as an inch of cleavage to be immoral. His standards are inhumanly high when, indeed, we are all simply human," Prowl said with a faint, almost nauseated smile. "To be honest, I am surprised I was conceived."

Torque took a deep breath, finally seeming to synthesize everything she had been told.

"I know this sounds horribly motherly, and I mean it as a friend, but… darling, I'm so proud of you for dealing with all of this. I'm so glad you got him away and had the courage to come out to him, even if he was too black on the inside to see how it doesn't change who you are in the slightest."

Smiling warmly, she reached over and gripped his hand and he returned the smile somewhat shyly, wowed by the outright praise. He had always assumed his troubles to be his own—who would care if he handled them well or badly? The dancer seemed to hesitate then, and continued,

"Still, I mean… what about your mother? You haven't told her, only your father. How would she react?"

"My mother?"

Prowl's brow creased. He hadn't thought once about what her reaction would be. She would perhaps gasp, cover her mouth and say something about it not being godly… but even then, her heart wouldn't be in it. Dai was, always had been, her earthly compass, to the point where she hardly bothered to have opinions on things. In fact, Prowl was certain that her first words would have been 'Your father will be angry' or something of the sort, which made him sad in a way he wasn't prepared for.

How would she react to her own son's exile? Probably little more than a shake of her head. There was nothing she could do, after all.

"She… I do not know," Prowl said softly, saddened once again by the fact he didn't know his mother. He could guess that she feared his father—they both had--but Prowl did not even know how she felt about _him_. Not honestly. "My father controls everything. I believe she gave up many years ago. It is hard to say how she would react, much less to the fact she is… never supposed to speak to me again."

"Being a mother is a very instinctive thing," Torque said quietly, looking pensively into her tea. "I hope she still has enough of herself left to realize that you are her son as well as his. No one can take that away."

She spoke with such a wistful tone that it left Lockdown staring, uncomprehending—and Prowl staring in a way all-too-knowledgeable. Then the doorbell rang and she jolted out of the beginnings of her funk so quickly that she was on her feet and to the door before either of them could look up.

Both men blinked, hearing hallway-blurred snatches of perky conversation until Torque emerged with a rather ramshackle bouquet of daisies and, following her, a lanky, tall man ducked into the living room with a somewhat stupefied expression on his face. Even Prowl eyed the newcomer's tacky mustard slacks with something like distaste, but at least _he_ stayed seated. Lockdown, on the other hand, rose to his booted feet almost immediately, expression darkening as if he couldn't see the sunshine-y, bedazzled way Torque was speaking up to the man; or the way their disparate hands, big and dainty, kept _almost_ brushing.

"And who're you?" Lockdown fairly growled, causing Scrapper to immediately back up a step, so fast he nearly tripped on his own shoes. He gave the tiny woman a gulp-stare combination that was meant to be something like '_Why the hell are all the men you know ex-wrestlers?!_' as he tugged his floppy hat further over his face.

"You back off," Torque said smartly, not a little bit pleased that Lockdown was giving off the classic alpha male bristle. Having Prowl to dote on had apparently tutored him in the ways of protectiveness. She crossed her arms, fairly purring in her perky green dress. "His name is Scrapper and he's a good friend of mine. We're going out to dinner and you two aren't invited."

"We did not expect to be," Prowl put in quickly, half-rising and dearly wanting to leave the woman to her evening. The living room was suddenly… crowded.

"Scrapper, Lockdown: my homosexual life-partner. And Prowl's the cute guy hiding on the couch. He's our resident cop."

She held out her hands, directing one man to the other with admirable ease. But it was as if Scrapper had somehow sensed that Lockdown was the main threat in this arena, so he kept his hazel eyes pinned on the huge albino bull as if Lockdown was going to break rank and charge him any second.

"H-hiya, guy," Scrapper eked out, proffering a hairy hand. Lockdown eyed it for a second before taking it and, from the look on the skinny man's face, grasping it far, far, _far_ more tightly than necessary as he gave it a bone-snapping shake.

"Hiya," Lockdown rumbled, flashing his gap in an indescribably threatening way. The remaining color drained from Scrapper's face.

"Oh Jesus Christ, what is this, the man-athon?" Torque balked up at the two of them, hands on her round hips. "We have _reservations_. Reservations!"

When they didn't look at her, and Scrapper grit his teeth and didn't plead for help, she threw up her hands and gave Prowl a 'What the fuck, seriously, _men_' look that was returned in kind with a '_Men_, seriously, I know' look that gave her an ounce of relief (and a metric ton of hilarity to see such an exasperated expression on prim little Prowl, who would never _think_ of being so obnoxiously male). She turned to her bedroom, fluffing her hair.

"I'm sorry you surprised me, Scrapper. These two distracted me, so I still have to get dressed. Guess I'll leave you two to man it out. Whoever survives has to sleep with me tonight—and I don't mean the cuddly pajama type, Lockdown."

Lockdown's face instantly scrunched in disgust, deeply repulsed by the idea of a naked female. Scrapper's face regained its blood in three seconds flat, but now glowed a bright, painful red from ear to ear—Torque probably didn't know how cruel it was to toss out such a joke, much less leave her lacy panties lying around with her abandoned laundry. The second the small woman was out of sight, Lockdown yanked the other man close by his hand. He stumbled forward: although Scrapper stood as tall as him, Lockdown seemed to outweigh the other man by at least one-fifty.

"You a good guy, Scrapper?"

"Like t'think so," he muttered faintly, fighting not to duck his head.

"Holdin' you to that."

The exchange took place within seconds, curt and almost brutal, and Lockdown ended by slamming him on the back twice and shoving him off, leaving Scrapper doubled and choking for breath. The dockworker then swaggered over to Prowl, who was currently giving him a very unimpressed look, helped him to his feet and promptly jammed his hand into his boyfriend's back pocket, squeezing possessively and looking back with a grungy smirk.

Torque's boyfriend's mouth was wide enough to catch fish, and it wasn't just from the slap on the back. Lockdown's smirk widened to a grin and he considered his job done. Prowl rolled his eyes, biting back the need to apologize for the very machismo, very _exhibitionist_ soul he called a lover. He settled for sighing primly as Lockdown steered him toward the door via his ass.

"We're goin', T, see you round."

"Have a pleasant evening."

There was an incoherent but decidedly happy answer from the bedroom and the two men left the small apartment, hopping down a flight of stairs to get to Lockdown's gloriously spiky green and black car.

"Did you truly find that last part necessary?" Prowl asked once they were climbing into the car. He twisted away slightly when Lockdown ducked in to kiss him, pouting and clipping his seatbelt in a way that could only be described as mildly standoffish. Lockdown blinked at him.

"Why, it make you uncomfortable?"

"No," Prowl answered truthfully, then stopped a moment to take that fact in.

He was not uncomfortable with his relationship being public. He was not uncomfortable with Lockdown as a… mate, even in front of a man he had never seen before—a man whose respect he would likely have to earn in the future, if he truly was _involved_ with their mutual friend. Which meant it was in no way a secret any longer. Which meant that he had come into his own, honestly and with ease.

Lockdown watched him soak it in, not having a clue what he was thinking about but rather admiring how handsome the young man looked with such a pensive expression. When Prowl surfaced, Lockdown kissed him noisily (a squeaky cartoonish atrocity) before he could speak, earning himself a slap to the shoulder.

"I was simply going to say, that was a concentrated effort to sabotage Torque's… _companion_."

"Nope. We're up-front kinda people. If he can't deal with a few queers, he definitely can't deal with her." He gave Prowl a signature shitty grin, waggling his inked brows. "Just wait until she starts wantin' to bring one of her galpals into bed with 'em."

"Lockdown!"

He said it as one would shriek "_My eyes!_", and Lockdown only laughed like a wild thing and roared off, tires screeching on the pavement as they headed off to their own 'evening'. They didn't need reservations to have fun. No, siree.


	41. Now

A/N: This is in both Odd Couple and Odd Moments simply because it was too freakin' cute (and applied to both).

Thanks for the huge outpouring of support and love, guys! I got so many reviews it blew my brain! you're absolutely amazing and I'm so glad the Much Expected scene didn't disappoint you :3

* * *

Now

* * *

The one thing Lockdown had come to terms with in his life was that, no matter what, people stared. Even before his tattoos, people stared; in stores and restaurants, in clubs and gyms, everywhere it was the same. Lockdown didn't give two shits about people, as a general rule, and thus didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to them… unless, of course, they didn't take the 'eye-contact' cue.

Mr Smock on aisle five of Triangles was not taking the eye-contact cue. Three times, Lockdown had looked up from his (Prowl's) shopping list and caught the husky, brown-haired man staring unabashedly at him, and three times Mr. Smock had looked down… and looked up _again_. By the time Lockdown heard footsteps behind him, his patience was shot. Couldn't a man choose between thin-wafers and crackers in peace?

"You got somethin' I can help you with, buddy?" he rumbled through his teeth, turning from the packaged goods to find the man standing a mere foot from him, the same surprised look on his face.

"I'll be damned," Mr. Smock said faintly, apparently too engrossed in the other man's face to notice the almost-instinctual tensing of Lockdown's white muscles. "It is you."

Lockdown glared at him, and kept glaring until the man said _his name_, drawing away warily. Then he recognized that Tennessee twang and that brown-fuzzed face in a single spasm of memories. The clean aisle of the grocery store did not fit with the sudden burst of hay-smell and the remembered creak of an empty wooden barn. Lockdown's mouth fell open slightly.

"Goddamn. Hound."

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, each struggling to make the other fit into their current reality. Lockdown shifted his weight, inexplicably uncomfortable with the fresh-faced thirty-something man staring at him like he'd seen a ghost. Averting his eyes, he asked the obvious question—the one that had put Hound here after dusty Calhoun, out of all the big and little cities in the USA.

"How the hell'd you get out here?"

"I, uh, moved. With my… " Hound swallowed, scrubbing at the back of his head. He was neatly trimmed and neatly dressed, though still sporting a roguish five-o-clock shadow. Same boy, just a man now. "Stayed in Florida for a little while then moved up here for a job. Got outta Calhoun 'bout the time you did. I heard you just jumped ship one night. 'Probly the smartest one of us, honest."

A sudden pause settled between them, growing more and more uncomfortable by the second. Hound cleared his throat.

"Pretty, uh… pretty hellish, now that you've got some perspective, ain't it?"

Lockdown nodded. Once it had been acknowledged that they'd both walked the same ugly dirt roads a thousand miles away, the older man couldn't help but be transported there briefly. He hadn't had a reason to remember Calhoun for a long time and the feeling wasn't pretty. He heard Hound take a deep breath beside him, and looked up in time to see him stick his hands in his smock pockets. Hound's handsome, down-turned face was twisted in a mixture of shame and regret and Lockdown knew what was coming before he even said it.

"Lockdown. I just wanna say that I'm… sorry. Real sorry."

_Ain't like you didn't have a choice_, Lockdown wanted to say, but he settled for shaking his head. It was a strange realization to know that he would have bitten into Hound a year ago, but he just didn't have the gall to now. Didn't see the point.

Yeah, he'd run with the crowd that had made his life hell, but he'd never thrown stones. Hound himself probably lived through a different version of hell, laughing along with the same spiteful folks he knew would turn and beat him bloody in a moment if they only knew. Life was hard all over. No use cutting each other up now that they were in the clear.

It was definitely Prowl talking in his head, unsurprisingly, but that didn't make it any less true.

"Doesn't matter. Done my best to forget anything that happened in that town," Lockdown grunted, harsh voice lightening a little once he realized he truly meant it. "What matters is we're here."

"Yeah. That's right, idn't it," the younger man said with a relieved smile, reaching up to muss absently at his hair again. The two of them stood, eye-to-eye, and simply felt all the differences surrounding them. All the space to move. Hound opened his mouth to speak again, but before he could, a voice came from behind him.

"Hound, are you ready?"

Lockdown looked up, past Hound's broad shoulder: a tall, pale-haired man was waiting with a bag on one arm and a little girl in a purple dress on the other. Hound grinned and gave them a nod, face immediately lighting up.

"Yeah, gimme a sec to shut'er down for the next shift."

"Daddy, git a move on," the little girl called, only to have her ponytail tweaked hard enough that she squeaked indignantly. The other man bent down with a disgruntled expression and gave her what sounded like a gentle correction in grammar or pronunciation ("Doesn't 'please hurry' sound better, angel?"). Hound nodded at Lockdown's utterly lost expression and gave a sheepish attempt at a smile.

"Raj is, uh… real insistent that Windy not start talkin' like me. He's real soft on everythin' else, but… no bones on that. Got her lined up to take speech coachin' or somethin'."

It took Lockdown a minute to figure out the simple logistics on the two people standing on the other aisle and the man standing in front of him. He and Hound had rolled together once, briefly and out of nothing more than necessity—now the grocer's son had a man, and, unless she was a loaner, a kid.

A kid. The thought blew his mind. Had they just walked in and asked for one? And the adoption place had just… handed her over to two men?

Lockdown stared at the little girl, held by one father and awaiting the other one anxiously, then looked down at Hound.

"How d'you know which one she's talkin' to?" he growled dubiously.

"If both of us answer her ever' time, there ain't a need to guess," Hound chuckled. He looked fondly back at little Windy, who was now smart-talking Mirage by the way she had her hands holstered on her hips. "She's pretty awful spoiled, but she'll grow out of it. Maybe. She's a firecracker though—can't make her do anythin' she didn't have her mind on before."

"Huh. Who's the mom?"

"Oh, well… y'know, both of us kinda… do whatever it takes to—" Hound began, somewhat doddering, but then realized the fearsome, tattooed albino in front of him was looking at him with a goading, rib-nudging expression, got the actual joke and sputtered, "Oh, Mirage. Hell, definitely Mirage."

Lockdown grinned what Prowl had always dubbed his 'dirty lecher' grin, giving a satisfied little nod. Their 'male' moment, sex joke and all, was complete. Hound chuckled a little once the shock passed—he had never seen Lockdown smile before that moment, even if it waned to something small and a little uncomfortable—and, after rocking to his toes for a second, the grocer offered his tan hand. Lockdown looked at it uncomprehendingly before taking it and shaking it once. It felt strangely good to make that simple, honest contact with a boy—man—he never thought he'd see again.

Felt good to see him alive and well. Functioning. Happy, for lack of a better term… especially when they'd long thought 'happy' was too high to shoot for, being a pair of queers in Calhoun.

"Anyways, it was good talkin' to you. I own this place—jus' this one, not the chain--so if you… need anythin' of the min'mal variety, you just lemme know. A'right, Lockdown?"

"Yeah," he answered vaguely, mind still stuck on the thought of kids. Kids and queers. _Little girls_ and queers. Then, when he actually _heard_ what Hound said, something Prowl said flashed through his mind and Lockdown gestured as the other man started to walk away. "Wait a sec."

Hound turned, waiting expectantly; Lockdown crunched his short-term memories, drowning in the lame feeling of being thoroughly whipped by a boy half his size… and fighting to remember something as sissy as herb names.

"Some, uh… some coriander." At Hound's mystified stare, the dockworker ran a hand over his skull with an air of impatience. "My guy cooks with it an he's been bitchin' that he can't find it anywhere."

"And he's cookin'…" Hound trailed off curiously. Lockdown shrugged.

"Dunno. Darlin's a vegan-tarian, whatever the hell that means," he huffed, rolling his eyes. "Startin' to sound more like Commie every day."

Hound blinked, then actually laughed aloud: it was a deep, nice sound, genuine and calm. It gave Lockdown a snapshot of his life, and he knew right then that anybody would be lucky to have half of what Hound had, regardless of where he came from. Hound took a pencil and a pad of paper from his pocket and jotted the herb down, then nodded at Lockdown with another slight chuckle.

"A'right, I'll get on that. You come back next week and I'll have word for you."

"Thanks," Lockdown made himself say, then immediately turned and walked away, towards the door.

He didn't leave, however. He lingered long enough at the end of the isle, out of sight, to see Mirage usher Hound out from behind the butcher's bar and kiss him, sweetly and fearlessly in the middle of a populated grocery store. The little girl tugged on each of their hands until they leaned down and pecked her on each cheek. She clambered into Hound's arms like a purple-frocked monkey and the pair carried her out, chatting adoringly over her head and, though Lockdown didn't know it, deciding on the location of their next picnic.

The door jingled and, along with the nice idea that maybe people _could_ leave a place like Calhoun behind, Lockdown was visited by a thought as brief as it was absolutely terrifying: would Prowl ever want kids?

Shit, he hoped not.


	42. New Leaf

A/N: Just a nice little oh-god-kill-you-from-the-fluff settle-in chapter. Yes, canon references. I sneak them in there sometimes when I'm feeling guilty for making a 40+ chapter fic about humans when, in fact, this fandom concerns giant alien robots.

… SHUT UP I KNOW I SHOULD'VE QUIT AT 20.

Nekkid Prowl. Just warning you. Soooo much cuddly nekkidness.

* * *

New Leaf

* * *

The next day found Lockdown returning from an impromptu shift at his warehouse job. He honestly hadn't wanted to do anything with his day—especially a sparse forty-eight hours after such a clusterfuck of a family clash—but spend it locked safely in the bedroom with Prowl… more specifically, between his thighs. But calling in sick again meant a missed shift and a missed shift meant missed money. Necessity found him tromping up his stairs sometime around six, thoroughly ready for a beer—and _just_ a beer.

No hard liquor for a while. A long while. No reason, especially not now.

Lockdown pushed open the door with his shoulder, grumbling in relief as he entered the warm house and already half out of his boots, then looked up to see a sudden flash and a rustle in the kitchen. He froze at the door, staring around with a suspicious look, then called Prowl's name.

When there was no answer, he called it again, walking toward the kitchen. Halfway across the living room, he heard a noise that could only have been described as _uncomfortable_ and Prowl popped out from the blind part of the kitchen, chest bare above the bar-portion of the countertop. He was hurriedly pressing his loose hair back into a ponytail.

"Hello. How, ah… are you?"

"Pretty good," Lockdown said slowly, noting all-too-well how nervously Prowl was eyeing him. At a loss of what to do, he steadily walked forward; Prowl matched him step for step, inching away with a wary look on his face. Grin budding as much from anticipation as utter cluelessness, Lockdown suddenly took a lunge forward, past the protruding counter, and caught a flash of red dish-towel and white ass.

"Holy—are you streakin'?!" he demanded, pointing stupidly at Prowl, who was thoroughly trapped in the corner between the sink and the stove, naked save for a medium dishtowel pressed over thighs.

"I did not—I _was_ not—" he huffed, sputtered, and finally half-shouted over Lockdown's instant roar of laughter, "I clearly remember hearing you say you would be back at seven!"

Lockdown just shook his head, slapping at his thigh and howling until Prowl's face reddened to match the dish towel. When he finally ran out of laughter, Lockdown sauntered up to him, hands on his hips. Prowl glowered at him, adamantly clutching the dishtowel to his front.

"Fuck, you're cute." Lockdown squeezed his bare butt, just grinning wider when Prowl made a snarly noise, which quickly quieted into a soft breath when Lockdown bent down and nosed at his ear. "S'nice, ain't it?"

"Not altogether disagreeable," he sighed at last, as though loathe to admit he even understood the beginning of why Lockdown could never be found with clothes on in the first month of their 'cohabitation'. The big man drew away and looked him up and down with a playful but _never_ insincere lust.

"Not that I'm arguin' in the slightest… but what brought this on?"

"My father officially disowned me mere moments before my partner bodily threw him into a hotel bathroom and barricaded him in," Prowl answered dryly, abandoning the dish-towel. "I decided it was a good time to cook dinner in the nude."

Lockdown laughed and growled his agreement. Prowl's tight smile relaxed to one far more content as Lockdown didn't move away, but rather held him closer. The moment before he was discovered, it felt wonderful to be unwatched in the warm house, comfortable in his own bare skin… and then to be pressed against Lockdown's rough jeans and warm, wide chest? Lovely. Standing in the quiet house, the two men fell into each other just as quietly; Prowl's spine turned to jelly as the big man rubbed his bare back, just holding him.

After a moment, Lockdown gave his ponytail a little yank and took him by the waist, trying to manually move him away from the stove. Prowl dug his heels in only briefly, as though the living room was less safe than the kitchen to be naked, then looked up quizzically as Lockdown left him to jaunt out the door. He returned with a worn cardboard box and a strangely unfocused smirk.

"Got somethin'."

Prowl felt incredibly awkward huddled in the middle of the living room, trying not to cover himself, until Lockdown handed him the box. He opened it, and, as if like magic, all his self-consciousness dissolved into a thin mist.

"Thought'a you."

Placing the box on the coffee table, Prowl lifted the gift out, holding it up to the dim light of the living-room with a look of disbelief on his face. It was an ornamental helmet with a strong samurai style, black-lacquered with gold detailing. Looking at it, Prowl found himself unable to speak.

"Where did you find this?" he asked throatily, touching the front crest as gently as he could. Lockdown watched him dubiously.

"You want me to put it on the shelf or burn it? Your face says some'a both."

"No, this is…" Prowl swallowed, steadying himself. "This belongs to my master."

"I don't steal stuff, kid," Lockdown said tensely, hands out.

"No, _no_. It was stolen two years ago," Prowl explained, hurriedly flipping the helmet and peering inside it, then running his fingers over the ornamental horns that reached so high and cut inwards so beautifully. "Someone broke into the dojo and ransacked Yoketron's display case. There were only a few pieces of value, but it… it just destroyed him. He collects armor pieces and some of them had been gifts from previous students. This one in particular…"

Prowl couldn't finish. The helmet had escaped two years of being passed around some kind of black market with only a few rust stains and scratches. With some varnish, it wouldn't be good as new, but imagining the look on his elderly sensei's face upon its return was enough.

"Really, where did you find it? I cannot imagine where it finally turned up."

"You don't wanna ask after where I get stuff. If half the spare parts in the garage could tell stories…" The sometimes-mechanic shook his head, then gripped Prowl by the shoulder, making the thin young man look up with a startled expression. "Go find your guy and give it to him, or keep it here. Whatever makes you happy, kid. I just thought'a you 'cos it was… y'know, asian-looking."

Prowl soaked in the old keepsake for another moment, absolutely touched that he would even enter the other man's thoughts so frequently (even if only due to eastern twists in his genome), then looked up with a sudden hesitancy.

"I thank you, but… you are hardly in a position to be making such purchases."

Lockdown gave a half-startled, thick laugh, then tugged him close.

"I'm _hardly in a position_ to be dinkin' a kid 'most half my age, but I'm doin' it anyways."

The slight discomfort of the statement went away immediately when Prowl smiled awkwardly into the hand that came to cup his cheek. For the third time in the past very hectic week, Prowl felt his heart speed up and start to make great galumphing thumps as he felt that this moment was somehow more important than the rest: and he asked himself what he should do with it. The answer was not far off.

"Are we…"

Inked brow quirked, Lockdown waited, both expectant and forcibly clueless. Prowl swallowed.

"In a relationship?"

"Guess so," Lockdown said at last, tone mild. "For at least a few months now. Unless you don't think so."

"No, _no_," Prowl blurted out, then half-recoiled at the stymied expression on the older man's face. He ended with his face in Lockdown's chest, arms wrapped around his barrel chest. "I mean, yes. Yes, we are."

They looked at each other for a moment, almost startled by the sudden officialness of it, then Lockdown snorted and kissed him. It was a beautifully affectionate peck, nothing lusty about it. Lockdown was about to draw away, and his housemate was about to let him until Prowl saw the look on his face.

"What is it?" Prowl asked hopefully, praying there was some verbal sentiment hiding behind that _expression_. Open affection, once experienced after a lifetime of neglect, was addicting. Lockdown surprised him by giving him a critical look and whapping him softly on the rear.

"Just wonderin' how the hell I ended up with someone as gorgeous as you, considerin' I'm the white thing of the north."

Prowl bit his tongue, not expecting that answer. The shy full-body flush, no matter how intense, didn't last long. Too soon Prowl was gazing up at his—the word again, back and natural—_boyfriend_ a little skeptically.

"You have changed."

His immediate answer was a _sharp_ slap on the rear and finger in his face.

"Hey kid, you're defenseless. I wouldn't go around sayin' hurtful things like that with my ass in the open."

Skin prickling, Prowl stared at him as though flabbergasted that he had truly offended Lockdown after such an intimate exchange. Then, thankfully, the other man's exaggerated glower eased into a smirk and the offending hand came back to toy with Prowl's hair as the big man leaned close.

"I don't change for anybody."

"Ah, of course. I rescind my previous statement, then," Prowl chuckled softly, hand sneaking up the back of the other man's shirt. The man gave a pleased rumble.

"English."

"Kiss me."

"You put down the helmet and you can order me around all day," Lockdown muttered against his lips, groping slightly for the sharp metal thing behind his back. "Nearly had to trade my hand for that thing."

Sobered and excited in the same moment, Prowl had a sudden, almost hilariously disconnected thought that the helmet was as close to an engagement gift as he was going to get, then carefully placed it atop the shelf and joined Lockdown where he was already lazily splayed on the couch. It was second nature to take up a seat in the other man's lap, leaning down to kiss him and pressing into him in small, feline ways.

Still aching after the wound his father had opened in him, Prowl parted from a hard kiss long enough to straddle the big man, counting on his nakedness to be enough of a hint as to what he was hoping for before dinner. But they kissed and twisted and Lockdown made no move to advance it in any bulldozer, trademarked Lockdown way. At last Prowl's hands set upon his belt-buckle, jangling it insistently, but Lockdown's hands actually pushed him away.

"What are you… doing?" Prowl asked, drawing back enough to see Lockdown's lazy, half-devious smile. The dockworker reached up and ran a hand though Prowl's hair, then pulled hard enough at the back to make him exhale sharply. When the haze cleared, his lover was still looking at him—rather, admiring him, ruffled and hot-cheeked.

"Figure I like the idea of just makin' out with you," Lockdown drawled, one hand petting up and down his leg.

"What?" Prowl gulped, sounding uncharacteristically stricken. Even _panicked_. "As in… this is it?"

"Don't think you can handle it?" he chuckled, a hint of sly challenge in his voice.

"I don't believe I understand," Prowl admitted hesitantly, eyes downcast.

He was an objective sort of person. Once he was enlightened to the end result of sex, he worked towards it every moment. Detours were pleasant, yes, but to have no destination? And for _Lockdown_ to suggest it?

Lockdown said no more, but with a simple hand on his cheek, the confidence the big man radiated was enough to put trust in whatever strange plan he had—even though it wasn't _nearly_ far enough along to be devising strange tricks to enhance their love-life. Regardless, restrained to the tools of fumbling teenagers, they continued.

There was a certain comfort in focusing on kissing—it wasn't half-frantic, but as varied and sweet as anything. Tension, yes, but no insufferable heat got in the way and begged for short-cuts.

They super-saturated each other to the point where Prowl did not exist save for the warm, soft points where he was in contact with Lockdown. He was a palm brushing down a warm neck, a collarbone under tight skin; sore lips and a cheek tingling as the older man's stubble scraped it as he buried his nose in Lockdown's neck and let his own neck be kissed, clinging tightly to the other man's wide back. The tension rose so high between them that a simple kiss sent sparks through every inch of him and he tried not to twitch or push in.

When they parted, both were breathing heavily and allowed only an inch of space between their lips. It felt as though he were radiating heat through his skin, mind preternaturally blank… which further validated his suspicions that he was actually _swooning_. Lockdown nosed against his forehead and he answered with a soft noise, curling his fingers around his t-shirt sleeve.

"Never got to fool around with anyone before," Lockdown murmured against his temple, hand trailing down his lower back. Prowl's closed eyes fluttered, mind as faint as his voice.

"Me neither, I suppose."

"I'm gonna do it."

Frowning uncomprehendingly, Prowl placed a kiss on his lover's cheek and waited for their experiment to continue, because it was quite clear Lockdown was making good on his promise of 'fooling' him into the cushions… but Lockdown drew away and looked at him seriously.

"Swear I'm gonna make it right for you."

In that sentence was an echo: Lockdown's promise from the afternoon when Prowl told him about the nakodo and his father. Prowl bowed his head, suddenly hot in the face for another reason. He pressed close again, swollen heart tripping on its own beats.

"Thank you," he murmured into his neck. Though Prowl didn't know exactly what he was speaking of, it was more than anyone had ever done for him. His own sense of worthiness and security and love, hardly present in his existence until a scant half-year earlier, anchored him in the older man's arms, making his throat tight.

Lockdown truly had changed—or was trying to, which was so much more important

A finger on his chin made him look up and Lockdown kissed him with all the intensity of the last half hour, so much so that it made the younger man's hands shake—then forcibly situated him so he was on his back on the couch, left blinking at the ceiling by the sudden plane-rearrangement. Prowl heard the other man's hands jangle on his belt and opened his mouth; Lockdown laid a kiss on his bare hip.

"Couldn't handle it," Lockdown grunted brusquely, yanking away at his clothes. "Blame that pretty mouth of yours."

"It was a fine ideal," Prowl laughed when he found his voice, reaching forward and removing the huge man's clothes with equal fervor.

"Don't fuckin' know how teenagers do it."

The bristling distance of the statement made Prowl laugh again—as if the massive man had never been a teen himself, skinny and naked of tattoos. But in a sense, it was true. It was clear they had both skipped that stage in their lives: nights of almost-innocent groping, hoping for one more decayed boundary, one more inch of bare skin. Normal acclimation to sexuality, really. Even now, Prowl could see it as a subject worthy of obsession.

"It is called restraint," Prowl supplied wryly, rolling his eyes and arching lazily at the same time as the older man undid his pants. "Something you have in spades."

"You want it, they want it--what the hell would you hold back about?"

"Sometimes it concerns the other person," Prowl said more to himself than anyone, eyes sliding shut as he let Lockdown take the reins. "It seems that, if you love someone enough, you will hold back for them."

Unbidden, Prowl's mind visited the image of Sari and Bumblebee twined on the couch at the Project, mouths brushing. It was abrupt, but somehow perfectly fitting. He had not understood it in the slightest when he saw it, but now? He remembered the brash little moves defused instantly by as little as a touch of Sari's fingertips. He knew Bumblebee. He knew how forcibly idiotic the boy was, how driven by hormones and selfishness—and yet he thought of her so much. He cared for her.

Prowl had heard only the most scattered of news about the two of them—it seemed the break-up he had always predicted had occurred—but for the first time, Prowl honestly hoped that they were alright, and that they found their way to each other eventually. They had something special. They just needed to grow up a little to claim it in full.

When he drifted back to reality, Lockdown was leaning over him, blocking the light from the last of the evening. Prowl's hands immediately went to brush down Lockdown's hard bare chest, but when his lover once again did not move to further it, Prowl smiled up at the white-skinned man with an amused tilt of his head.

"And what experiment are you doing now?" he asked softly. Lockdown gave a little cockeyed grin.

"Holdin' back, I guess."

Chest clenching with a suddenness and strength that numbed him, Prowl leaned up and kissed Lockdown as hard as he could, twining his bare arms around his lover's neck and taking him down onto the couch.


	43. Old Turning

A/N: Read this **_before_** reading Touch in Odd Moments, peez!

New AFFnet update, which I would read before _this_. :3 I know, I'm getting all demanding and sequential, I apologize. Enjoy!

ilu Swindle.

* * *

Old Turning

* * *

"Lockdown! How you _doin_', buddy?"

The shades to the clean little office dropped with a clack, but Swindle still peeked through them as if the older woman and the college student loitering around on the cracked concrete of his used car-lot were witnesses to some kind of crime. Lockdown had certainly been ushered in faster than the normal customer after he bullied one of the man's lackeys into taking him where he wanted to be. Even after yanking the door shut behind them, Swindle turned with a strained grin, palms upturned.

"Whaddya need? Or really, what _couldn't_ have waited? Cos, y'know, it isn't really… _professional_ for you to be here, if you'll excuse the term," the dealer managed with a big, fake burst of friendliness. Nervousness leaked out in every movement as Swindle reached forward to rearrange things at random in his orderly office, avoiding the unflinching eye of the 'customer' seated in his chair. "You could have just called and I would've been happy to drop in at the next—"

"Didn't wanna wait for your convenience," Lockdown rumbled, head bowed. He stared at his twined hands for a moment more, then looked up at Swindle, reddish eyes dark and determined. "I'm out."

The small stack of papers in Swindle's hand promptly sloughed to the floor, white spreading in a flower-shape over the grungy carpeting. He stared uncomprehendingly at the man slouching in front of his desk for a moment, then kneeled and hurriedly started shoveling the papers back into his hands, as though the faster he went would restore the clean-stack-of-papers moment before Lockdown _said_ that.

"What?" he rasped at last, then cleared his throat loudly and forced himself to smile. He slapped the stack onto the desk and leaned on it, plucking at his bolo-tie. "Translate this for me, guy, I'm not quite getting your _drift_. You're, heh, what? You're out of_ what_? Milk?"

"I'm out. Done," Lockdown said. "Don't wanna carry for you anymore."

"What?! You can't just _come here_ and you can't just—_do that_! I'm in the middle of an operation here!" Swindle exploded, sending a handful of papers to the floor again. The arms-dealer stared at them as someone stares at a corpse, breathing too quickly, then muscled himself down in a horrific display and turned to Lockdown again with a wide, white grin, jaw locked. "Well, sorry to disappoint you, guy, but that doesn't work for me, and that definitely doesn't work for the President."

"Too bad. Your boss ain't my concern. This'll be my last run—then, you take me off your list."

The tattooed man shifted as if to rise, but Swindle's brown hand slapped down on the desk in front of him, the man himself thoroughly blocking the only way to the door. Lockdown looked up. As soon as he saw the slightly crazed look on Swindle's face, it receded back into plastic smile lines, leaving Lockdown silent as the other man clapped his hands and backed off with a cynical bark of a laugh.

"I'll, heh, level with you, LD. You know how hard it is to find charming backroads _idiots_ like yourself who are willing to take on illegal arms for a fee?" he began, voice all-too-amiable and honey-sweet. "More difficult than I said earlier. In fact, you're pretty much my last resort. Everyone else has dropped out on me!"

Lockdown's expression did not change in the slightest. Eyes locked on him in the hopes that it _would_, Swindle put his fingers under his chin and leaned against the opposite wall, face pensive.

"So I've got a deal for you. A sweet one, if I do say so myself. Finish this round, take on another three shipments, and I'll raise your keepers fee by twenty-five percent."

"No."

Swindle twitched as if struck, hands immediately clenching into fists at his sides.

"That's—think of what that can buy! God damnit Lockdown, if you're as piss-poor as your jeans, you need that money! You're gonna lose that house and everything in it. Everything!"

"Can't do this anymore," Lockdown said, then finished, almost to himself, "Gotta take care of the kid."

"What? _What_? Your little… cop _fuck-buddy_?" Swindle demanded, pushing at his glasses. Even through the purple glass, however, the arms dealer could see something dangerous flare in the huge man's tattooed face and Swindle started talking loudly and quickly, as though he could make it go away by sheer volume. "You can take care of him with the money you get from this! You'll be good for a _year_, you can buy him _anything_ he wants--you won't even have to _work_! I'm serious, Lockdown, _dead_ serious. I _need_ you to take these guns."

Heavy as white marble in the office chair, Lockdown simply shook his head. Swindle gaped at him, heart smacking the top of his throat with each ragged beat.

"You haven't even moved the _first_ wave yet! My--fuck it, my head's going to roll if you don't _step up_, guy!" he gestured wildly, now nearly shrieking in fear. "You don't fucking _realize_ who you're _dealing_ with! This man will have me _killed_ if I don't turn out! He's a monster, makes the _mafiosa_ look like a gang of teenagers with switchblades!"

"You knew the rules gettin' in. Good luck with that," Lockdown grunted, rising from his chair with a sense of heavy finality that made Swindle's last nerve snap. He took a deep breath and what came out next was pure desperation and pure instinct.

"Just two shipments, and I'll double it!"

Lockdown didn't fall back into his chair but froze halfway to his feet, staring uncomprehendingly at Swindle. Scenting an actual shaking of the other man's bones, Swindle huddled closer, a desperate spark in his eye.

"I'll double it. The fee. Add a thousand on top of that. Two—no, five-thousand. That's… that's thirty-two grand, Lockdown." Lowering his glasses, he looked down into Lockdown's face, searching every line, tattooed and natural alike, for the weakness he knew was there. Swindle put out his hand, close to Lockdown's arm but not too close, and said softly, "That's a lot of money."

The office was absolutely silent. Lockdown continued to stare at him in something like anxiety, rusty gears surely grinding inside his pinball skull. After a long pause, the huge man ran a hand over his head, breathing thickly in the tiny office.

"Two more shipments," Lockdown said warily, expression arrested.

"Just two more," Swindle assured him, keeping as still as he possibly could. Like any movement would make the other man realize the danger, snap and run. Lockdown turned his head aside, red eyes narrowed. He bit his knuckles, glaring off into nothingness. Swindle waited.

"But only that."

"My word's _gold_, LD, you know me," Swindle said with a bare hint of his earlier jauntiness, managing to straighten himself and tug his tan lapels flat. When Lockdown stood and turned, Swindle crumpled and caught his breath for a split second, run ragged, then was working a cigarette out of its pack by the time Lockdown turned back to him with an almost infuriated expression.

"Fine. Just tell your boys to get the fuckin' guns out as soon as they put 'em in and take me off'a your call list. You heard me before, I'm done. Done with you, done with this whole business."

"I get you. Quick as possible. They'll be by on Wednesday to finish off what you've got," Swindle mumbled around the cigarette, lighting it with hands that shook only slightly. He pocketed the lighter and took a big draw of smoke, just to borrow some warmth, and smiled up at the other man. "Always knew you'd come through for me, big guy."

"This ain't for you."

"I know, I get it, it's for the _kid_. And, uh… _about_ that, LD," Swindle began, hesitating as he twiddled with his bolo-tie again, eyes on the ceiling. He took another healthy drag from his cigarette and placed it into the ashtray, where it smoked sullenly. "Now, I don't wanna be the one to _say_ this, but I have to let you know. Nothing better _happen_ to those shipments."

"Otherwise you'll have my ass," Lockdown grunted dully. He'd known the stakes since he got into the game. It wasn't news.

"Not _your_ ass, per se."

Struck by the complete silence behind him, Lockdown looked up to see Swindle half-seated on his desk, plucking his purple glasses off of his nose and squinting down at them slightly.

"It's real _easy_ to knock off a cop, Lockdown, once you know his vehicle of choice. Cute little custom lights included," Swindle began calmly, cleaning his lenses without looking up at the huge white-skinned man staring at him, frozen down to his feet. "Patrol is a pretty _simple_ thing to track. Doesn't _hurt_ that we've got an inside man in the DPD and a lot of guys who would like nothing better than to put a _bullet_ through anything with a badge—but _hey_, I know you're _good_ for this. You just keep your nose clean and your hands in front of you, and your boyfriend will be _fine_. Scouts honor, huh?"

Swindle's plastic, confident smile broadened as he got up and physically took Lockdown by the shoulders and directed him out of his personal office.

"Just a friendly _reminder_, big guy," he chortled, patting Lockdown on the back and giving him a final shove—one that almost made Lockdown stumble. Swindle reached for the handle, then lit with a sudden thought, finger in the air. "Oh, and do me a big one. Next time, call before you drop by. Okay? Okay. Have a good one!"

The door slammed.


	44. Pride

A/N: All this fic-jumping is making me dizzy.

* * *

Pride

* * *

A month in, both of them were still alive.

The sheer fact that their continued existence was under question was enough to make Lockdown accidentally run himself off the road on three separate occasions, even as he refused to believe the kid was in any real danger. It wasn't so much an assumption that Swindle was good for his word, but that not thinking about it would make it less likely to happen. The idea of someone walking into the DPD and pointing a gun at Prowl's head was too much to handle, so Lockdown just went to work and came back and tried to forget about it, and both his driving and his sleep suffered for the denial.

Unsurprisingly, he'd done the same thing when Prowl took off after their fight. Lockdown had just begun to realize why he'd been so choked up in his head after that one ugly night. He couldn't have imagined Prowl staying after such a clusterfuck, but he physically couldn't _think_ about him leaving and being gone. The scene that kept playing over and over in his head was a nasty shouting match then the slam of a door and then silence. Nothing came after except an encore of the same gut-wrenching clash, just because he couldn't think about going back to being alone.

Prowl just up and leaving his house—leaving _him_ when he'd never been in a position to be left by anybody--would be a cataclysm unmatched by anything in both strength and silence. The idea of Prowl being _taken_ from him was louder and terrifying in a different way. The big man would always know there was something missing. His own house wouldn't be safe. Hell, his own body and mind wouldn't be safe: some part of him would always expect to be able to reach up and toy with loose hair and smell faint cedar.

Prowl was his one chance at something. He didn't quite know what, but he wasn't going to lose it, especially when he'd nearly shot himself in the foot once already. That's why he had to take care of the kid, no matter what. No matter how.

He'd gone into Swindle's office intending to drop out and came out with two shipments. Lockdown knew something was screwed up there, but Swindle was offering something that might keep the pressure off of them for at least a year. He was offering them a chance.

It was a lot of money. He'd been running the racket this long and nothing had happened. He could do it a little longer, if it meant no one would take his house. Pay-off was big enough to risk it, but just for Prowl.

They were all excuses, yes. But no matter how many Lockdown made, after this he was clean. Really clean.

Lockdown came in with a jingle of keys, popping off his boots and nudging one against the door to prop it open. Prowl smelled the healthy march cross-breeze immediately and hmm-ed his thanks, considering a move to the back porch. The wood and the air of the house had gotten stale over the winter and could use a shot of pollen. Spring was shy in Detroit but they had waited long enough.

Prowl was on the couch, reading a newspaper he had secreted from the DPD. His ice-blue glasses were back on his nose, but that was only due to the slight prescription they claimed. Lockdown sat next to him with a creak of tendons, huffing slightly. Prowl did not look up, neck-deep in an article about something deeply intellectual. After a moment, Lockdown put his hands on his big thighs, palms slapping against his rough jeans.

"So." The dockworker dropped the one syllable awkwardly, practically forcing it from between his teeth. He took a shallow breath. "How'd your day go?"

Dropping his paper, Prowl looked over with wide eyes at the completely out-of-character question. Lockdown returned that same stare only to look away a second later, thumbing his ear with a certain morose sense of embarrassment. For a moment, Prowl simply didn't know what to say and so he just stared—then it _hit_ him.

Had Lockdown been reading up on relationships on the internet?

"I'm—I apologize," Prowl chuckled softly into his hand, shaking his head. "Are you attempting to be communicative?"

Lockdown's lost expression immediately turned huffy, like a tiny black storm-cloud had perched on his nose. He scowled and moved as though to get off the couch, muttering something like 'Well if you're gonna be a brat about it', but Prowl chuckled again and captured his big wrist. He hung on until Lockdown flopped back down, expression still intensely dubious.

"No—no. My day was pleasant." After a small, oddly shy moment, Prowl slipped his fingers into the other man's hand and smiled faintly up at him. He felt as though he were playing a lame role in a sitcom: an odd purely inductive impression, as he had never watched one. He searched for what to say next. "Thank you for asking."

Lockdown scowled and looked away, radiating the most intense discomfort anyone had ever witnessed on the big, ever-easy juggernaut. Prowl cocked his head.

"What is it?"

"This is too fuckin' weird," Lockdown growled at last. His painfully stymied, almost _overwhelmed_ tone made Prowl shake his head and smile. Healthy relationships were neither of their specialties, but Prowl never expected to have it proven so… concisely.

"Of course it is," Prowl said reassuringly.

A simple smile expressed his confidence that it could still work, despite any and all awkward moments. It was the first time he had felt so certain about anything, and it was infinitely more peaceful than any description of nirvana he had sought out in his rockier years. Prowl remembered how he had ripped through books, as if desperately hoping for something more fulfilling than the misery he endured for so long: something to look forward to, if just at the end of his life. He somewhat understood the lure of heaven, now.

He also understood the reality of it, being with someone who cared for him and free of the last person that tied him to self-hatred. His life was his, now. If that wasn't the definition of nirvana, he didn't know what was.

"And how was your day?" Prowl obliged the dockworker in return, smirking somewhat—wondering if he should offer Lockdown a beer or just go put on an apron.

"Better, now," Lockdown muttered as he looped a thick arm around him, taking his angular glasses off and sliding them onto the coffee table. Prowl decisively moved into the Lockdown-induced dip of the old couch and tucked himself against his boyfriend's side, leaning against his solid chest and bringing his newspaper into his lap again. He read for a little while and Lockdown simply accepted his role of leaning-post and nosed his ear occasionally, leaving the younger man to wonder how much could be said without words, especially right after a legitimate (and obviously painful) attempt at healthy communication. If Lockdown continued this troublesome 'changing' streak, his lover might be unrecognizable by their first anniversary.

Anniversary. Yet another word, drawn from the recesses of cultural jargon, that had never applied to him before. Prowl rather liked the sound of it now. It carried a sense of commitment. Safety.

Prowl was smiling to himself by the time he finished his article and reached for the mail on the coffee table. He had picked up his weekly handful from the DPD that day, where he was having it temporarily forwarded… if 'temporarily' still applied after four-some months of living out of the Project. He supposed he should have his address changed to Lockdown's house, but thought perhaps he would wait. It was one of those explicit, formal, _binding_ things he knew would unnerve the other man, and he didn't want it to come too soon after they had 'legitimized' their relationship.

Still, it was a little humorous that no one but Lockdown and Torque knew where he was living at the moment. Optimus probably still thought he was living in a cardboard box on the side of the road and was worrying about it every night. He should at least inform his team leader that he had a warm bed. A… very warm bed.

The young officer sorted through the spam, absent smile suddenly freezing on his face as he picked out a heavy envelope with the state seal on it. He stared at the front for a moment then broke the seal, pulling out a fat packet of papers. He bowed his head to read them. Lockdown blinked down haltingly when Prowl simply stopped moving—stopped breathing, stopped pulsing, every muscle taut, then took a shaky breath that seemed to collapse his insides.

"What is it?"

"It's…"

Seeing only cramped legal script over his shoulder, Lockdown cursed roughly. He didn't need a name to place either the look on Prowl's face or the way his fingers were clawed around the paper.

"It's my father," Prowl said needlessly, voice faint. "He's suing you."

"You're kiddin' me," Lockdown growled, arm unconsciously tightening around Prowl. Prowl didn't respond, only leaning closer to the letter with a sick look on his face. Uneasiness mutilated Lockdown's gut as he remembered the bastard threatening to sue him for indecent assault of his son. Sue. It was a small word, but way high up on the food chain.

Suddenly, Lockdown couldn't sit still. If just to get away from the heavy papers with the lofty jargon he couldn't hope to understand, the big man stood up and stalked into the kitchen. He got as far as opening a cabinet, then turned and slammed his fist on the counter, if just because he realized he was heading for the shelf where he kept the whiskey. He grit his teeth, clenching his eyes.

"Where the fuck does he get off sayin' things like that? How? I didn't even touch you."

"No. Him." Prowl looked down and read it again, one hand to his forehead. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained, his face white. "When you… threw him into the bathroom, he fell on his arm. Apparently it broke."

"Unless that guy has bones of glass, there's no fuckin' way I broke anything," Lockdown shouted back, rage gaining momentum. There were unsteady clattering noises from the kitchen as he opened cabinets and slammed them closed, as though looking for something he couldn't find. "There were mats in there and he got up right after and started bangin' on the door with both hands. Dirty fuckin' lyin' _whoreson_."

There was an accusation of theft: Lockdown stole his father's cellphone so he couldn't call for help, so he would stay in there and have time to think about things. Prowl looked over it again and again, but all the words had become cryptic and the very letterset foreign: his eyes slid over them, greased by the panic in his gut. He swallowed.

"He has proof by a doctor."

Lockdown's white arm froze mid-slam, halted by a force greater than any muscle. That meant they were screwed. That's what that meant, wasn't it? Lockdown let the cabinet fall shut. The living room was so silent it was as if Prowl had died. The older man left the kitchen only to find Prowl gazing at the papers in his hands—and the look on his face was ten times more horrible than uncontrollable sobs.

"So he refuses to speak to me except to ruin the life he doesn't agree with," Prowl murmured too softly, too calmly, hands beginning to shake. "What motivates him? How can one person possibly be so hateful?"

Just seeing Prowl hunched over that letter, Lockdown's insides took a hard blow he wouldn't ever really recover from; he fell down next to the young man and took him by the shoulder again. He held Prowl tightly, trying to shake him, push him, out of that dark place that had been waiting for him all of his life. He wasn't truly fearful until Prowl didn't move, didn't _stir,_ until Lockdown took the heavy cream papers and tossed them on the floor, forcing the young officer to lean against his chest.

"Hey. Hey. It'll pass."

Prowl's eyes stayed locked on the scattered papers beside the coffee table. He couldn't feel Lockdown's arms around him, nor the warmth of the other man's skin: he was trapped on a cellular level by the power the papers still held, both invisible and crushing. No matter if they burned all of them, Dai would simply send more.


	45. Need

A/N: Yoketron remains hard as hell to write and chockfull of clichés. Swindle, on the other hand, is one of those characters who pours effortlessly out of my head. And… leaves a trail of grease under my ear. Ew.

I know this is a totally vomit-worthy desecration of canon, but let's just forget about that whole Lockdown-Yoketron confuffle in the show… shall we? Yeeeeeah.

* * *

Need

* * *

Lockdown woke up on the very first thump and was pushing the covers back by the fourth. His sleep had always been fragile on shipping nights; he couldn't stand to think about the sleepy look on Prowl's face when he got up, or the loose hair stuck to his cheek or how goddamn warm the kid was. The young man settled back into bed hesitantly when Lockdown squeezed his rear and told him he was going out for a smoke.

No one he knew smoked at three am, but people were more liable to do stupid shit when their life was threatening to shake itself apart, so Prowl let him have his excuse.

"What the fuck's the matter with you?" Lockdown growled once the basement door was closed, every muscle pulled painfully tight. He squinted in the dark to find the source of the rustling, picking out the clammy glare of at least three white faces. "You wanna wake up the whole city?"

"We're footing it as soft as we can, what's your problem?"

"Don't fuck with me, guy," he snarled at the darkness to his right. The shipper crew's small hand-lantern cast a weak yellow light on the pile of semiautomatics near the shelves, which shone like ridged, solidified tar. Suddenly it felt like they weighed more than black matter and they would pull his entire house down into the ground—and Prowl with it. Lockdown pointed at them. "If you're cleanin' up, take those with you."

"What? We can't fit that many in the false bottom. We could get pulled over for that."

"You think I care? Get 'em out. Now. All of em."

When nothing but shifting silence met his order—incredulous, near-frightened _that-wasn't-part-of-the-deal_ silence--Lockdown glared into the depths of the basement, focusing on the nearest blurry white face.

"You either load the rest of 'em in your truck or I knock your teeth in right here. Your choice."

The man just stood and stared back, self-consciously bracing his feet against the rough concrete as if to make his stand on the matter obvious. It crumbled instantly when Lockdown stepped forward and dug his fist into the front of his black shirt, yanking him up to his toes.

"You _heard_ me."

The shipper twisted and grabbed onto his hand, hissing something affirmative. Lockdown dropped him with a small push; the scrape of his shoes against the concrete sounded knife-sharp in the silence. Then the huge man backed against the wall and watched with a threatening glower as the men filed past him three more times, piles of black guns bristling in their arms. It was only on the last run that the first shipper dared to raise his chin and give him a malevolent glare. A warning glare. Lockdown countered it with a flash of his teeth and watched them get in to their black truck, forcing himself to cough as the heavy truck started up with a jolt and slid off the gravel walk and onto the highway.

He knew he was only making it worse, and it was never a good idea to make enemies out of the guys who handled anything illegal, but he was sick of this world. That, and if he ran out of the sinkhole quickly enough, maybe he—they—would make it out okay. Maybe they could really get out and keep everything they had in the process.

Lockdown took one last look at the empty basement and his empty, dirt-smeared hands. Only one of them would be full again come the next week.

He clenched his fists, too tired even to strike out, and locked the basement again with a doomed-sounding thud. Then he stared at the porch stairs and absorbed the silent spring night for one long minute, preparing to tell the lie inherent in a calm slide under the covers and an absent grumble.

Not only did they need the money, they needed it now.

* * *

In some ways, the house was even emptier than before.

Just when Lockdown had begun to ease up on his double-shifts, the appearance of the papers caused both men to hide in their work. Prowl took long shifts to avoid thinking about his father and Lockdown simply kept moving to keep his mind blank about everything, unable to comprehend the loss of more money than he'd probably ever seen in his life. The two men's coexistence was always quiet, but after the papers it seemed like a malaise had settled over the house that no amount of spring air could clean. Prowl did not speak and Lockdown stared at magazines without reading them, somehow adding to the fear of silence both had acquired over the past month.

It remained stagnant until that Saturday, when Prowl walked in and breathed in sharply, causing Lockdown to look up from his beer. Expression almost manic, the young officer strode over, grabbed up the old samurai helmet from the pile of polishing rubbish it was nestled in and walked straight out the door with it under his arm.

"We're going," he called back.

The only thing Lockdown got in the way of further explanation was the slam of a car door, which was enough, surprisingly, to get him out of his seat. A few minutes later on the south highway, Lockdown glanced over at the young man practically rattling in his car-seat, looking stiffly out the window with the wrapped-up helmet on his lap. The only possible choice had been to get in the car and take Prowl where he wanted to go: namely, his old dojo.

The kid was nervous. Anyone could tell. Prowl had tried to pay him back for what Lockdown spent on the helmet since he was just passing it along to his kung-fu master or whoever, but the older man had turned it away. A hand on his housemate's thigh and a sparse smirk calmed the officer a little, but Prowl still wouldn't stray from the passenger-side of the musclecar until Lockdown was out and walking alongside him, thumbs looped in his pockets and radiating the masculine confidence Prowl so needed.

The dojo building was a minimalist mixture of wood and white plaster on the outer edge of Detroit, surrounded by rustling willows. They had been forced to park four city blocks away from the park area's little oasis and approached the dojo's lattice-style side porch with a significant amount of wariness. Neither knew quite what to expect. Holding the wrapped helmet like a guiding lamp the entire way, Prowl finally slipped off his shoes and entered the wide main room of the dojo, head already bowed.

Yoketron was sitting cross-legged in a puddle of sunlight and the glare off of his cotton robes was nearly magnificent, making the young man twice as grateful for the chance to reconnect with his sensei even as he quailed slightly. He had been gone for weeks and the distance between them seemed tangible, especially with as dearly as Prowl cared for the ancient man and desperately needed his approval. Hearing the soft pad of feet, the elderly man began to turn, fine white brows high.

"Who is--Prowl?"

"Sensei."

Prowl sunk to his knees in front of his teacher with a barely-controlled haste, placing the parcel aside and touching his head to the floor. Expression unreadable, Yoketron offered him a place on the wooden dojo floor with a gesture; Prowl took it with his eyes downcast, radiating a mixture of discomfort and slow-burning shame.

Yoketron studied his student's face in utter silence and then turned to the energetic rustle of the trees near the dojo.

"You have been busy."

"I apologize."

"You need not apologize for having pressing matters in your life," Yoketron answered, still surveying the trees.

"You misunderstand, sensei," Prowl said softly, drawing the eyes of his teacher. The young officer laced his hands and took a deep breath. "I apologize not for my absence but how I treated you when I did manage to appear."

Yoketron frowned, nut-brown face wrinkling.

"You are correct. I do not understand. Why apologize?"

Prowl had always wondered if Yoketron were capable of getting angry. The most extreme emotion he had ever expressed was sternness and the occasional pulse of sorrow, leaving no room for sharp words and selfish gestures. There was a perpetual calmness in his voice that Prowl had always taken to be pure acceptance… but now he realized it was, perhaps, surety.

Sitting there in the sunlight, Prowl had a split-second impression that Yoketron was merely playing a part for him, walking through this to give _him_ the proper experience even as he knew how it would end. The otherworldly notion departed as soon as it came, overwhelmed by his own shame and the fear of pushing his ancient teacher any further away than he already had.

"You have always left your door open to troubles and questions, and yet I avoided you and this place when my life presented me with too much of both. You offered me so much more than anyone else, and yet I thought myself above it or… did not trust you to care about me enough." Prowl closed his eyes, remembering the hounded emptiness afresh. The simple inability to _trust_ harmed him in ways he could not have imagined. He had been afraid of his sensei, the one source of true parental comfort in his life, and that alone was worth sorrow. "All you have ever done is help me. I am truly sorry that your faith in me has not been rewarded."

After a long moment, Yoketron simply smiled at him. His nod was an acknowledgement of the pure feeling in the young man's voice: the same tenderness and depth of human emotion that Prowl had blocked himself off from for years and years. The glasses were gone. The poison was gone. The brittle boy, arms locked in front of his chest with a permafrost scowl, had grown into a gently warming man.

Slowly, with an emotion calmer than relish and gentler than pride, Yoketron reached over and took one of Prowl's hands in his, enfolding it in his papery-cool palm. The touch brought on a pulse of serenity and a grounding sensation Prowl would remember for the rest of his life.

"If you have returned with a full knowledge of what you need from this life, that is all I ever hoped for."

Prowl's expression remained conflicted. Apparently he needed something more than fortune cookies. Yoketron chuckled slightly, patting his open gi and amending dryly, "If you will apologize for your absence, apologize to my heart. It was sore while you were away and blames you, I think, with a fair amount of conviction."

Struck dumb for a moment, Prowl nodded and took the affection with a slightly shy smile. The sight of it only fed Yoketron's own into a grin. His sensei gripped his hand tightly and let it go. Prowl, suddenly nervous again, looked back at the door then to his sensei.

"I have something for you. I hope it will… pay back my debt in some small measure."

Reaching back, Prowl handed his sensei the bulky cloth-wrapped bundle; the old man received it gently, with but one curious arch of his brow. He unfolded the first layer, frowning at the scratched black metal, then lifted it free of the snowy wrappings. The direct sunlight struck sharply on the curved horns, glinting off the lining of the helmet so intensely Prowl put a hand up.

Hands cupped reverently around the helmet's sides, Yoketron's expression was that of awe: the awe of a young man, simple and unfettered.

"Where…?"

His deep voice trailed off and his thumbs wandered through familiar grooves, cherished strips of gold. His display-case had been ransacked years ago, but he never forgot the feel of the pieces. It was clear he thought he would only ever see them again in his dreams. Prowl smiled without pride, left only with a small, sweet joy that he had returned something so special to his sensei's life.

"That, apparently, is classified, but I can offer you the man who found it."

Yoketron's complex expression only acquired a dash of utter confusion to see a mammoth white-skinned man waiting stiffly in the doorway, eying the pair's bare feet while he shifted back and forth in his dirty black boots. Rising, Prowl introduced Lockdown. Crossing the threshhold with a few cringe-worthy steel-tipped booms, the dockworker reached out his tattoo-plastered arm to the old sensei, who stood at least two feet shorter than him. Yoketron clasped the ruffian's hand gratefully, giving his thanks with a short bow, and Lockdown's reddish eyes widened slightly at the strength hiding in the ancient man's bony fingers.

Brought to a busy joy by the reappearance of one of his most treasured pieces of armor (and his most treasured student), Yoketron urged them to sit as he made tea. Prowl shot his beau a _just-drink-it_ glance, which was returned with a lame, tolerating grumble as the two sat in the clean white sunlight and looked out on the back porch of the dojo.

Lockdown loosely crossed his legs, staying a respectable foot from his boyfriend, but Prowl stayed stock-still in his uncomfortable-looking kneeling position. He seemed pleased to be back with his sensei again, but undeniably nervous at how long the visit was lasting. The appearance of the samurai helmet allowed him an avenue to unite two of the most important people in his life, but it was becoming horribly clear that he wasn't sure how the encounter would proceed once he did.

The older man, nursing a tinge of nerves himself, was mildly surprised OCD Prowl wasn't hissing directions to him: say sensei, take off your shoes, bow low. This, he realized in some quiet corner of his brain, was the equivalent of meeting the in-laws, and the rest of his brain was already quite aware of how well the real event had gone. Prowl unconsciously straightened when his master returned with cups, taking his with a gracious inclination of his head.

"So your name is Lockdown," the tiny man began conversationally after he poured all three cups, setting the tea kettle down with a gentle clank. Lockdown straightened a little, a product of the amused glance Yoketron was dealing his dirty work boots. Seating himself, Yoketron folded his hand in his lap and looked at the mechanic with eyes both fond and appraising. "You must be Prowl's lover."

Prowl choked on his very first sip, hand clapping to his mouth. He coughed and coughed, forced to his knees by the sheer force of it until Lockdown rapped curtly on his back and he surfaced with watering eyes.

"Se-ensei!" he rasped behind his hand, aghast.

Yoketron only looked over at him with a perfect mixture of serenity and mischievousness—and a _pride_ Prowl couldn't quite believe was there.

"I have always told you, I watch my students very carefully. As you spent half of your time watching Smokescreen, it was difficult not to notice when I watched you," he said primly, blowing over the rim of his teacup.

"I—I idolized him!" Prowl protested, face white.

"Which part?"

"His… skills," Prowl managed, voice turning faint. Suddenly, it was as if his eyes were turned several years back and the dread on his face did not bode well for the contents of those years. Lockdown, no stranger to checking out fine guys, snickered slightly.

"Ah. I never realized that skills were located on one's backside. I have learned something new today," Yoketron said happily, leaving Prowl flabbergasted at how easily his old sensei was teasing him. Part of him simply wanted to cross his eyes and fall over backwards, just because the rug had been pulled from under his feet in such a colossal fashion. His sexuality had been his best-kept secret for years, a painful and muddled mystery even to himself—but how could he have thought anything could escape the most perceptive man he knew? Slouching some, Prowl frowned deeply into his hand, trying to simply make the information _fit_.

"You… knew?"

"I inferred and waited," Yoketro said kindly. Prowl opened his mouth, the very motion somehow miserable and questioning, but Yoketron raised a finger and shook it gently. "It was something you had to find out on your own, like any other thing worth knowing. Though it is of no importance to me, it was of great importance to you. I hoped you would come to me when you were ready, if just to satisfy my curiosity as to whom you would… select."

Expression suddenly skeptical and very, very old-man-ish, Yoketron arched his brow and looked up at Lockdown and his piercings and his tattoos, who looked away and bent to take a gulp of the tea, unusually subdued. When Yoketron asked him what he did, the mechanic rumbled something like 'a little here and there' and quickly asked about the helmet to get the conversation off of himself. Yoketron bit the lure after a critical _I-saw-that_ narrowing of his eyes, obviously fully intent on asking after the other man's age once the conversation lagged.

Prowl studied the two of them for a moment, then finally relaxed with a short sigh. He never should have feared Yoketron's reaction to his true nature: it never would have mattered. Yoketron knew, no matter who he loved, he was still the same person. Rather, he was an even better person now that he had learned this about himself. His master had helped him along as best he could, giving him advice to help him shape up as a _person_—with the proper growth, all the details would have followed naturally.

Prowl chest suddenly ached with a rush of gratitude for Yoketron and all the ancient man had attempted to do for him: all the space he had allowed him to grow and the helping hands he offered. Prowl never realized how closely his master had watched him and how long he had waited for his student to grow up enough to help himself. The thought warmed and grounded him the same way Lockdown's hand on his hip always did. He never realized anyone had cared for him that much, and cared unrewarded for such a long time.

Yoketron was the only one who had, with the probable exception of his mother.

If just for the moment, Yoketron had ceased interrogating Lockdown to admire the helmet again. He turned it reverently over in his hands, but he looked up and frowned to see Prowl staring blankly at his clasped hands, expression troubled.

"Is something wrong?"

Prowl looked up, startled, then turned to exchange a glance with Lockdown. It was a large question. There were more things wrong than right, at the moment. Half of him wanted to simply tell someone else about the lawsuit and get it out into the air, but Prowl realized that one other thing was truly bothering him on a different level. What was more, Yoketron was the only one he trusted to give him an answer.

"It is my mother," he said hesitantly, shaking his head. "I do not know what to do."

Slowly and carefully, Yoketron refilled the tea cups: his cue that he was ready to listen, no matter how long it took.

Taking a bracing breath, Prowl began to fill in the details of the frame his sensei already knew. Empty seats at performances. One glimpse of his mother through his entire six years of training. The reason he stayed in Detroit at nineteen instead of moving to Boston with his parents. Prowl tried with difficulty to explain the relationship between his parents, or put any faith behind the assumptions that his mother cared for him. He had simply never found any proof in traditional means, like affection, or he had been too young to remember any.

The only time he could remember spending considerable time with his mother was from the beginning of eighth grade until high school. His father was outraged at the liberal sex education that emphasized safe sex instead of abstinence and attempted to get it overturned. When that failed, he pulled his son out mid-semester and set his wife to home-schooling Prowl until he could attend a private catholic high school. Looking back, Prowl could remember that his mother was slightly happier when teaching him. Perhaps it was just because she had a purpose beyond cooking, but she came alive when planning curriculum even if he was too sick with anger and frustration to see it. He cruelly spurned her lesson plans half the time and refused to play student. He wanted his friends back.

He, at least, had had some sort of communication with the outside world. She never had. As soon as he went to St. Benedict's, she was trapped with Dai again. And after they moved to Boston, she was alone with him. No wonder she wanted him to come for Christmas every year.

When Prowl finished with his father's visit and final condition—that he never attempt to speak to either of them again—the pain in Yoketron's weathered face soothed the immediate sting of the experience. Still, the discomfort still remained. Torque's words stayed with Prowl, reawakening him to the idea of his mother as a sensitive woman who had suffered with Dai even before he was born. What, indeed, would his mother think? Was it at all right that Prowl leave her alone with his father, when she was just as much a victim as he had been?

"Should I go and find her?" he asked, voice strained. The idea of facing his father for the third time, especially if it was to see his mother, made him weak and cold. The possibility of a restraining order added to the lawsuit made him even colder. "Is it… too presumptuous to think she would even want to see me?"

"From what I saw, there was no question whether she loved you, but there was an even lesser question as to whether she was under her own power," Yoketron said sagely, brow furrowed. "Some people need help to find their strength. If you were to see her and tell her what you told me, I can think of no better call to wake her. Whatever happens, I wish you only the best, Prowl. Now that you have it, I know you can see that everyone deserves freedom in their own skin."

Shortly after, the three of them walked out and Yoketron stopped just short of the grass, sun shining brightly on his white hair.

"Prowl? You will come back next week?"

Prowl turned back and nodded, reliably businesslike.

"Of course, sensei."

"Because any longer and I will send you back to beginners rank and strip you of all your belts," Yoketron said informatively, leaving no question as to whether the threat was real. Prowl blinked at him, then bowed with a knowing, properly-chastised smile. In truth, any longer and his master would have him scrubbing the floors for the next eight years in _addition_ to starting over with six-year-olds.

"Yes, sensei."

The two men turned and began their long walk back to the car, Lockdown hooking into his belt-loop and liking the way Prowl leaned into him. The big man didn't try for a kiss, but it was enough. If just for the short walk, they were just two guys out with each other, no money problems to be had. The city was warming up and the air was sweet.

As they neared the parking garage, a man crossed their path and stopped at a lamppost, messing with something inside his jacket. Lockdown eyed him uncertainly, fully aware it was still broad daylight, but nearly stopped walking entirely when the stranger turned and looked directly at him, then looked at Prowl as if memorizing his features.

Prowl didn't notice, but the sight of the man's facial hair was enough to jog the mechanic's memory. No matter how often the shipper crew changed, that man had been in his house before. He had been dressed in black, like all the others.

In three steps, Lockdown felt his two worlds enter into a dangerously narrow corridor. He was about to open his mouth, if just to say a dumb _uh-huh_ to something Prowl asked, but the man's jacket purposefully slid back just as they passed and the sunlight caught on the black gun strapped to his side.

Lockdown's skin went cold and he pulled Prowl close, who only put a hand on his forearm and kept walking, wondering aloud if they had pasta in the cabinet.

* * *

He caught the arms-dealer right as the Indian man put a foot onto his swanky tan SUV, the gas-guzzling behemoth already grumbling and purring from a handy self-start keychain option.

"What the hell are you playing at?"

Lockdown resisted the toothy urge to yank the short man down to concrete level as Swindle regarded him with an expression equal parts annoyed and surprised. The car lot was empty, lit only by a few stray lamps. Lockdown had been lucky to make it in time, and his neck was damp with the evidence of how hard he tried for it. Swindle looked down over his glasses, one brow arched.

"_C'mon_, LD. We're hardly a _second_ _in_ and I'm already getting '_angry'_ from you, guy."

"Angry ain't half of it, asshole," Lockdown seethed, fists raised. "I haven't done _shit_."

"Never said ya did," Swindle said curiously, swirling his pinky in his ear with a vague expression. "Although shit tends to happen whether we do it or not, if you're gonna get philosophical about it…"

"I was on the street yesterday and someone flashed me. One of yours. He had a piece and he _flashed_ me with it and the kid was right next to me," the ex-racer snarled. The feeling of invasion resurfaced all over again at the thought, strong and sharp and threatening. "If you say I haven't done shit, then you tell me why the hell your boys are following him around!"

It hit him like a man getting a joke a minute too late and Swindle waved his hand almost jovially, leaving Lockdown to hope against hope, nails in his palms, that what was coming next was something like 'it was all a mistake'.

"Aw, real sorry I didn't make that clear. Yannoe how I said I 'had' guys who'd be willing to kill your boyfriend?" Swindle prompted him meekly, shrugging his shoulders in the face of Lockdown's blazing glare. "Well, I do. I just don't really… control them. They're a good bit like hyenas, actually: once you let 'em out, they pretty much do whatever they want."

Swindle flashed him a shiny grin, keys jingling in his pocket.

"Real self-motivated, you've gotta admire that."

"What happened to Scout's honor, you filthy fucker?" Lockdown demanded, voice little more than an animal rasp. Hard shock froze his throat, burned his skin. Swindle looked up at him, wrinkled his nose and cocked his head.

"Eh, I was always more of a Ranger kid."

Before Lockdown could react, the arms-dealer had one foot in his tan SUV again, then strapped himself in and shut the door with a metal-on-metal slam. He leaned out the window, pushing his purple glasses up his nose with a flourish.

"Keep your nose clean and hope for the best! After all, hey, what more can you do?"

The SUV's purple drivers-side window eased up and the motor gave a huge growl; Lockdown managed to reach the side of the door as the car started to move, rage and something dangerously close to desperation driving all of his veins to the surface of his skin as he slammed his fist down again and again. Impact after impact and still his heart refused to start again.

"Where's my money? Where the hell's my money, Swindle?!"

Swindle's brown hand poked out and gave a little wave as the SUV roared away; Lockdown stumbled into his diesel fumes, coughing in the dark parking lot and, afterwards, stood staring into the night, too terrified to move.


	46. One Day

A/N: Apologies for any discrepancies on my Buddhist lore. I'm hoping to hit on really wide-ranged beliefs, but if its something you (presumably a Buddhist, if you know enough to call me out on it) haven't heard of, let's pretend that Prowl practices some extremely specialist futurist form of Buddhism, because he totally would. He's pretentious like that.

Wow. Odd Couple only has four more chapters left after this. It's kinda freaky to think about, really. This story is like my weird, started-out-as-an-awful-humanized-crackfic-but-turned-into-an-instruction-manual-for-discovering-myself baby. Also, I do promise one thing, good or bad: this story will have a happy ending, it just won't be the one you want.

Super gooey religious love-love chapter. Skip it if you're not in the mood for sap :]

* * *

One Day

* * *

The next morning, Lockdown wordlessly refused to get out of bed.

Prowl didn't say anything either, but the simple discrepancy was all-too-obvious when he was up and dutifully getting dressed and Lockdown was still sprawled in the dark sheets, scarred white body stretching for days. The officer prepared himself for work with an uncharacteristic slowness, not at all helped by Lockdown's wandering hands. The mammoth mechanic grabbed at his knees whenever he ventured too near the bed, trying to tug him back in.

At last, too amused for his own good, Prowl slapped at his hands. This only caused Lockdown to rouse, lion-like, and latch onto his waist and physically haul him back to bed. The small man hit and huffed gruffly, digging his nails into the big arms that immediately slid around his hips.

"C'mon, darlin'. Stay here," Lockdown murmured against his neck. His low voice made a silver shiver run up Prowl's spine, intensified by a gentle tug at the back of his head; his meticulously-tied hair suddenly sloughed over his shoulders.

"I have work," he said, not quite exasperated yet. He plucked the rubber-band back, gathering his ponytail again with a tired expression. "And, unless you haven't told me something, so do you."

Lockdown's hand tightened on his hip, nearly growling in frustration.

"Hell, what does fifty more dollars matter in the big scheme'a things? What could you do on paper in the station that's better than bein' in bed? Just fer today."

Prowl stared blankly at the opposite wall for a moment, struck by the zen-like outburst and Lockdown's rough tone. The notion was utterly him, but the logic and the urgency was… uncharacteristic. Regardless, it hit Prowl at his center.

Suddenly, the idea of driving alone to the station and sitting alone at his desk for eight hours straight, half a city away from his lover, made him feel horribly empty inside. Tired, frustrated, unrewarded. Dead. Lockdown sensed his creeping weakness and leaned down to press his lips against his cheek, one big hand cupping the other side of his fresh-shaven face.

"Stay with me, kid. Need you here."

There was a pause, so uncomfortable it was almost—if Prowl didn't know any better, but of course he did—frightened.

"Tomorrow is anybody's guess."

The gruff near-whisper and the older man's warm breath on his ear made Prowl realize, all at once, that being with the man he loved was so much more important than structure, social expectations, or paperwork. Money. Anything. They had come this far to be with each other, managing to break through a ridiculous beginning and the wall of each other's issues by sheer luck and some otherworldly force.

Even if he had to spend a lifetime working it off, he could spare one day. It was worth it.

Prowl acquiesced without a word, simply looking down and beginning at the top button of his uniform. Lockdown exhaled, husky and relieved, and helped him take off his clothes: it was a simple reverse order of tie, belt, shirt, pants, and underwear. Every movement was slow without being sleepy; strangely and wonderfully intimate without being sexual. Lockdown's eyes and hands were fixed on fastenings, zippers and buttons, all gateways to getting the slim officer fully warm and soft and pressed next to him. Last went Prowl's socks, which the big man taffied off his feet, leaning forward to kiss his bony knee before gathering him under the covers.

They didn't have sex immediately, but when they did it was just a breathless extension of the quiet intensity that was in their bones by that point, weighing them down into the mattress and tying them to each other at their basest components. They parted for no more than a minute, only modestly sticky, then came back together with an urgency neither understood, fingers skimming over skin and dipping into damp hair and locking there. They kissed and lost their breath that way, pulses going hard and fast and alive.

For the rest of the day, the two men stayed in bed, drowsing and making love and reading and kissing one another's necks as the whims took them. Hardly a word went between them until Prowl came back from fetching lunch. It consisted of lazily-fried eggs and toast and he made sure to include a glass of sweet-tea for his picky beau. It was uncertain which Lockdown gave more of an admiring glance, that or his long brown legs as he returned with the plates. As he settled in, Prowl looked over, a little surprised at the immediate sharp clatter of the plate as Lockdown set it aside and instead took up reclining in his lap, one hand on his naked thigh.

The AWOL officer balanced the plate on one knee, Lockdown on the other and studied the book he had in his hand, absently chewing his toast as the big man rubbed his back. After a little while, Lockdown squinted at the tiny text.

"What's that?"

Prowl had to wait a minute to realize he meant the book.

"The _Dhammapada_. Teachings," he answered softly, free hand trailing gently over the back of his neck.

"Buddhist bible?" Lockdown guessed. He frowned blankly when Prowl nodded, the younger man for once content not to snottily extrapolate on how there really _was_ no Buddhist bible and everything did _not_ have to be likened to a Zoroastrian base, thank you. "What's in it?"

"Stories, fables and… scriptures, I suppose. Buddha's words."

"Gimme one," Lockdown said after a moment. "A story or somethin'. Somethin' you like."

Prowl looked down, genuinely torn from both his eggs and his studies by the request. He was even more surprised to find Lockdown's eyes closed, expression accepting or even serene.

"You honestly want me to read from this book?"

"Just wanna hear your voice, darlin'," Lockdown murmured into his leg, almost painfully quiet.

Prowl was so intensely touched that his body got jumbled. He couldn't quite swallow and didn't know what to say, so he just cleared his throat and started reading the passage he was on. It was the story of the monk, the beggar and the gemstone, a parable teaching generosity and detachment to worldly things. When it ended, there was a long silence, so he flipped through until he found one of his favorite pieces of wisdom and read from that, then another. When he ran out of things to read aloud, the bedroom was so quiet he could almost hear the forest rustling across the field. Lockdown's hands had long-stopped circling his knee and when he spoke, his tone was slightly skeptical.

"Life is suffering? That's a pretty shitty outlook."

"No. It's preparing you for the worst and best. Life is loss," Prowl explained carefully, running his fingers along the edge of the bound book. "They have a saying: 'all meetings end in a parting.' All things are impermanent, but it's the momentary nature of beauty that makes it so worthwhile. Everything you love, you will lose… but once you accept that, you can love freely and with grace. Passivity in pain leads to purity. You must take everything in its moment, for what it is."

Perhaps realizing he had over-spoken, Prowl trailed off, feeling somewhat embarrassed. They simply didn't speak like this and his lover wasn't one for metaphysical ruckus. Lockdown just nosed further into his leg, muttering:

"Still here."

He wanted him to continue.

Prowl, for the first time in his life, didn't feel anxious to prove himself and his values through his religion. He had chosen it as a means of rebellion, true, and because of that it had intimate, ugly connections to defiance in his mind… but in the dusky bedroom, all was transformed. The young man smiled slightly and put his plate and his book aside, devoting both hands to touching Lockdown's black-inked skull. The older man rumbled contentedly.

"But life is still hell, I suppose. There are these… people, who are called bodhisattvas. And they find nirvana—ultimate oneness—but they return to 'participate joyfully in the sorrows of life' and to teach other people the way to nirvana."

"You believe that?"

Prowl frowned slightly, looking out at the lines of vivid, flickering green daylight shining in from the shades.

"I'm unsure. I think they are more concepts than anything-an example for the best the human condition can offer-but I do know that in that concept is a kind of joy in the human condition, a strength, that I admire. It is the meaning of compassion, to feel so strongly for the plight of other that you would re-enter the earthly torture just to help them. But it isn't torture at all, in the end. It is…" Prowl looked for the right words, smiling as he found them—right where Yoketron had left them. "I've heard it compared to an opera. A horrible, wonderful opera that you cannot take your eyes off of. It is what we make of it. We construct our reality."

"Hell of a thing to put on someone's back," Lockdown said after a few minutes, voice tense. Prowl's eyes only widened for a moment, then they closed in slow, sad understanding. To people going through what they were… perhaps self-determination wasn't the best revelation to share.

Dai Atlas was an evil unplanned by any fate.

"Some things are beyond our control," Prowl murmured, gripping his shoulders. Lockdown huffed.

"You're tellin' me." He stayed quiet and still with his eyes shut. But when Prowl expected the mechanic to drop off in his lap, he was surprised. Turning, Lockdown muttered into his leg: "He wants to put me in. Your dad."

"It won't work," he said coldly, hating the adrenaline that immediately seared all the sluggish contentedness from his chest. He didn't know it, but he said it like he did. Lockdown shook his head.

"You don't think the charges'll stick."

There were charges—legitimate ones, too. Lockdown had indeed physically harmed his father, and simply assaulted him with intent to harm where that failed. As an officer of the law, he knew it was what would be called 'bad' or 'incorrect'. A year ago, he would have scoffed and said anyone else with such evidence against them didn't have a chance of escaping a guilty ruling _and neither should they_, but he had always assumed the people being assaulted deserved to be protected.

Now, he couldn't bring himself to think of it as anything but necessary. Lockdown did what made sense to him. He couldn't blame the older man for it. Life was… so different now.

"Ain't goin' back to prison."

Prowl looked down, eyes widening after a ponderous stretch of silence. The sentence—each of the individual words and their meanings—hit his stomach like lead coins.

"You've…"

"Once. Short run, but it wadn't good. Never goin' back," Lockdown added with a surety so deep it was almost mournful. There was an apology there, wrapped up in the tightening of his fingers and the way he looked at the sheets. A sense of guilt. Prowl didn't understand it, so he just gently nudged Lockdown far enough away that he could slip down into the covers next to him, assuring him with pressure and warmth.

"No. You won't go to prison."

Lockdown held him, kissing him deeply. Prowl's sense of safety returned, flowing through him.

"Love you," he said against his parted lips. Prowl smiled nervously, nuzzling his cheek if just to get away from the slim chance the other man would open his eyes and look at him.

"And I, you."

"Don't be a pussy," came the prompt growl, more annoyed than the quiet bedroom should have allowed. Prowl blinked, stymied.

"Pardon?"

The younger man pulled away and glanced up; the glower Lockdown was dealing him plainly said '_I put out, now it's your turn'_. Prowl's heart gave a great thump. Skin suddenly prickling, he had to stare down at the sheets for a full minute before he could convince himself to move his lips.

"I… love you."

It was the first time he had ever said it to anyone. Ever.

"You sure?" Lockdown said skeptically, one inked brow cocked. Admittedly, it sounded horribly shaky and a little like a confession under pressure, but Prowl realized he had never been more sure of anything in his life.

"Yes," he murmured with passion, shifting upwards to kiss the big, strange, strong man he'd come to share his life with. "I do."

"Fuck, you're gorgeous."

The exclamation, delayed, was nearly a groan; with it came a certain intrusion that made Prowl freeze in his tracks, then laugh and realize it had been at _least_ two hours since they'd had a roll and Lockdown liked the way he kissed very, very much. It was ridiculous, normal and somehow perfect. The shift assured Prowl that the worst, at least for that day, was over. Lockdown breathed out and leaned back and patted his back, taking him into the curve of his arm.

"Talk some more Buddha stuff to me. Almost jumped you when you were readin' those stories. Sexy stuff, there."

Prowl laughed, knew it was a lie (or at least half of one, owing as it took little more than a breeze to get Lockdown ready), but talked a little more. Their conversation came and went. After such a concise and stressful burst of worry and bad energy, Prowl was almost sure he dropped off into a nap once or twice, completely content to be safe in his arms, but when he came back, Lockdown was still breathing quietly above him, waiting. Just being with him, without expectations or rules.

Still, there were questions. No end of questions, actually, but Prowl couldn't help but be intensely grateful that Lockdown cared enough to ask. It meant a lot to him.

"And you don't worship the Buddha guy, you wanna _be_ Buddha."

"Technically, we all have the potential to be a Buddha," Prowl answered mildly, mouth set in the warm cradle of his lover's collarbone. His hands trailed over Lockdown's sides, finding scars everywhere; his ribcage gave a jerk as Lockdown huffed in bewilderment.

"A? There's more than one?"

"It means 'enlightened one'. That is our goal, to become one with everything and nothing."

"So what's your god?"

"There is no god as you think of it—no absolute 'creator' deity. There is the energy and divinity of the earth around us. It is the power of _being_ that we worship, and we are as much examples of it as trees and flowers. Reality is a construction, remember."

Whether or not he remembered, Lockdown groaned loudly.

"You've got one hell of a religion, kid. Think I like the idea of bruising my knees in church and tryin' to impress the big guy better'n I like tryin' to make myself into nothing."

"But one is much more fulfilling," Prowl said teasingly, nosing into his neck and sighing contentedly as he felt Lockdown's heart pump a deep, steady beat against his own chest. Calmness took root between them, germinated by warmth and skin. Lockdown's fingers trailed through his hair, mouth at his temple, breathing in his scent. Pushed below by a sense of serenity and eternity contained in a single moment, Prowl was almost asleep again when his lover rubbed at his neck.

"Hey, kid," he whispered, quiet as the oncoming dusk.

"Hm."

"Swear you'll be careful tomorrow."

Prowl only frowned for a moment. Then he nodded and slid his arms around Lockdown's waist, falling asleep in the older man's arms as night overtook the little house. Prowl disappeared into the dark sheets, leaving Lockdown glowing like a ghost.


	47. Waiting Game

A/N: I don't know if anybody's caught it, but LD's cute little ramshackle house is the parallel of Moot—ERRRR Death's Head, his ship, in the Animated series. It's the stamp of his independence, and thus he's incredibly, illogically attached to it. Even so far as to make some very, very poor prioritizing choices.

Again, I promise this story will be finished just like Moments, I just need to… post the last three chapters all at once for suspicious reasons.

* * *

Waiting Game

* * *

It was perhaps the single-most telling mark of his changed life-views that Prowl found himself in Optimus' office of his own volition a week later, sitting quietly while the Prime finished up a phone-call.

The handsome man was shooting him concerned glances as he wrapped up a conversation with his aunt. It was about Bumblebee, of course, but this time it didn't sound half-bad, which made the young man realize how long it had been since he had seen his old housemate. His superior's odd, pointed looks continued to mystify him, but Optimus hung up and faced him before he had a chance to really place what was odd about them. Before the older man could speak, Prowl laced his hands over his knee and said what he should have said years ago.

"I need your help."

Optimus' mouth opened, then shut in a plainly flabbergasted and worried way that should have only happened _after_ Prowl told him about the truly serious situation he needed help with.

It was then that Prowl realized what was odd about Optimus' stares. They were anxious and he hadn't even said anything yet. The young officer realized that he had only ever brought bad news to Optimus — he had given him so much trouble over the past year — and never once visited him on a pleasant occasion. The very thought saddened him in a basic way Prowl wasn't capable of before, perhaps just because he had never _had_ pleasant occasions worth a visit.

He regretted that this encounter would only continue the trend, but made a decision to change things. Perhaps stop for office conversation when he had the chance. Improve his track-record and become less of a hot-button connection to instant anxiety in Optimus' taxed mind.

Optimus put out his hands in a clearly difficult 'okay, tell me' gesture and sat back, blue eyes bright with worry. Prowl exhaled and gathered his thoughts — or rather, the fragments of everything he had planned to say to save himself embarrassment. With another breath, a fresh one, he tossed them out the metaphorical window and focused on saying what he needed to.

"I assume you remember the man I was pursuing," he began formally, steepling his fingertips.

"How could I forget?" Optimus asked a little weakly. It was clear on his face he was wondering where this could go, if not to a bad place. His memories of the hooligan were still occluded and mystified by the red windshield of a thorny, threatening musclecar: all a strange farce to the 'ninjacop' now that he knew the man underneath the tattoos. Prowl nodded, allowing him his doubts.

"He was not guilty as I assumed. Lockdown, as he is called, is simply a braggart with a penchant for harassing younger men," Prowl explained with admirable calmness, ignoring Optimus' perturbed look and plowing onwards. "Things changed between us. Whatever misdemeanors he committed in his history, they were his last, and when I exited the Project so hastily, it was to move in with him. I will not hesitate to say it was a blatant and risky form of rebellion at the time, but, against my wishes and better judgment, it became something more. We have begun a… relationship. He is my partner of many months now."

For a moment, Optimus Prime simply sat in silence, an overload of information — months and months of information that overturned months and months of worry and shock in one single deadpan curveball — swishing in and out of his ears. He blinked. Swallowed.

"Oh. Of… of course you are." Optimus murmured, eyes widening.

Prowl was gay. Prowl was _gay_.

Then he realized what he'd said and babbled, "I mean, not _of course_ you are, that's kind of insulting — I mean, not that it's a bad thing to be — I mean, not that you're really that type of — not that there _is_ a type of — … oh _hell_."

Optimus gave an exasperated growl and slapped his forehead out of sheer self-loathing, slumping back in his chair. Prowl just let him get it out, waiting with a calm, tolerating smile on his face. Perhaps he even smirked a little to hear his esteemed team leader curse.

That serene expression halted the older officer in a way nothing else could, even considering the mortified red hue of his neck. Optimus couldn't remember the last time Prowl had really smiled, much less given one with so much acceptance, empty of all arrogance or resentment.

He realized, then, that this was big. He was looking at a finished product. Prowl had become the man he was going to be, and that man was coming to him for help.

When Optimus had shut his mouth and remained silent and open for over a minute, without any awkward and unintentionally homophobic comments, Prowl nodded and began again.

"There is a legal situation. When I visited my father on his request, I refused his right to force me to marry a woman. My father threatened me. My partner rose to my defense and, without injuring him directly, restrained him in the bathroom of the hotel he was staying in. My father now claims that the fall broke his arm and is suing my partner for a very large sum of money. But Lockdown heard him struggling to get out and firmly believes him to be faking the injury."

There was a long pause as the Prime fought to internalize the story, working the details out in his mind. The very idea was lurid and histrionic; a situation he had to struggle to even place Prowl in the middle of, especially with his calm eyes and repose. Optimus clenched his eyes shut and then opened them, expression calculating.

"Is there any reason your father would…" Optimus began unsurely, hand over his mouth. It was a stupid question to ask _why_ the older man wanted recompense, seeing as he had been thrown into a bathroom — but to sue? That required bad blood or a huge grudge, the likes of which Optimus couldn't imagine between a father and a son.

"He despises both myself and Lockdown for the simple fact we are in a relationship. I was his last hope for continuing the family line and, quite obviously, it will not happen now. It is only natural that he should want to seek revenge." Prowl's voice, strong and businesslike up until that point, faded into something far more human and unsure. The young officer looked down at his hands, brow knitting. "Indeed, it would not bother me if our joint income were not so low. It would strip us to the bone."

The older officer sat for quite a while, simply looking at his inferior officer and friend. Though the words had settled in his mind as fact, he still couldn't fathom speaking about his father in such a way: as an enemy. Optimus had a wonderful relationship with both of his parents. Looking at the young Japanese man, who had come so far just to be a healthy person capable of admitting weakness and seeking help, he realized that Prowl must have been alone for a very long time.

"Prowl, I'm… sorry," he said softly, unable to force his mind past _how_ sorry he was that Prowl had to grow up into himself so recently only to be thrust into such an awful situation. Optimus, an expert at seeing the bright side of things, simply couldn't comprehend any clear way out or even order out all the details in his mind. Prowl just bowed his head, weighed there by the burden hovering above him.

Optimus was about to speak again, but the door to his office clicked open, causing both men to turn around. A tall man ducked into the office and took an immediate step back out, jostling his ice-blue sunglasses on his long, narrow nose.

"Prime? Magnus' office. Need you for a sec," Longarm said quickly, hand fretting at the door-handle. He swallowed audibly and flashed Optimus a meaningful, strained look that was still perfectly communicated through his opaque glasses. "News."

"Right. I'll… right," Optimus assured him, rising from his desk out of instinct as the door shut curtly. The sheer arrival of the DPD's double-agent was always enough to get him on his feet, if not running. He had almost forgotten about the meeting and mentally slapped himself on the wrist for doing so.

Optimus looked up just in time to see Prowl get to his feet at the same moment he did, perhaps just following his cue that their own meeting was over, but Optimus felt awful to leave such an important personal moment in favor of a professional calling. He hastily stepped around his desk and caught Prowl by the shoulder before the young man could silently leave as he so often did.

His younger friend looked up at him, almond eyes clear but barely restraining the sad question: where was the help he had asked for?

"I don't know what I can do, Prowl," Optimus said, voice gentle and squeezed. He looked down with difficulty and sighed, kneading at his prematurely creased brow. "It sounds… it sounds like your father has plenty of evidence. I hate to think that rank matters so much in proceedings like this, but your father is a respected man and your — partner…"

It was the kind of thing they battled in Detroit, often more insidious than crime. Politics still mattered a hell of a lot. It would always matter, especially when Prowl's father had strong links to D-Con industries. The fact they were a gay couple wouldn't do them any favors. He was moved to help Prowl in any way he could, of course. It sounded like the entire case hinged on whether they could prove the injury to be faked or not, which gave Prime an inkling of hope, even if they still had to deal with charges of assault.

Part of Optimus' mind was still reeling over the whole sexuality thing (it explained so _much_) but it just wasn't something he could discuss now, not with Longarm waiting. He had been looking into a new lead on a gun smuggler somewhere on the edges of Detroit. They needed to move quickly if they were going to catch him in the act of moving gear.

"I understand," Prowl said shortly, but it wasn't the hurtful shortness he was so known for.

"I'll do what I can. See what I can find," Optimus said bracingly, trying to put the most certainty possible into his voice. Then he squeezed the young officer's shoulder, drawing Prowl's beautifully uncovered eyes toward him. Optimus' own eyes were suddenly solemn. "Thank you for coming to me, Prowl. You know you always have friends here."

"I believe I'm just coming to realize how true that statement has always been… I simply needed time to become a friend myself," Prowl said with a somewhat shy smile, looking down at the floor then raising his eyes to the Prime's. He met them, held them with strength and sincerity and thankfulness, then gave his elder and friend a respectful half-smile and nod. "Go, Prime. You are needed elsewhere."

Optimus couldn't do anything more than stare at Prowl for a moment, almost as if tracing the complex aura of maturity radiating from the calm young man. At last, he gave a small, somewhat disbelieving smile and strode out of his office to more important matters, leaving Prowl standing in front of his desk with a bittersweet expression on his face.

* * *

Hours later on patrol, Prowl eased through the turns of his regular city route with a frown that seemed to be permanently carved into his face. Detroit, finally quiet in the small hours of the morning, was fighting off the spring night with the harsh buzz of electricity. Streetlamps whizzed by in his periphery, reflections sliding over the polished curve of his black riding helmet; flashes of red and green dictated whether he put his foot down or not.

He had stopped looking at license plates and following motor-roars a long time ago.

Prowl hadn't expected Optimus to solve all of his problems — that was simply too much to expect of the Prime, especially considering how much he had to deal with every day – but to hear that there was nothing to be done? To hear that the odds were just as firmly set against them as he had initially suspected? His regret and frustration coursed through his entire body, making it hard to watch or ride or breathe or care or see progress of any sort.

He needed to call his mother. He had always known he needed to, if just to _speak_ to her in the way she truly deserved and ask her all the things she hadn't the courage to ask herself, but if there was the slightest of chances that she could speak to Dai and perhaps get him to reconsider… No. The very thought made the young man's gut crumple into clammy ash. He had raised his optimism to a level of insanity if he thought his mother held any power over Dai whatsoever. If she spoke to him about it, it would more than likely make his father even more determined to do it.

Prowl gripped his handlebars so hard he lost the feeling in his joints, then slowly released every tendon with a tense breath of air. He simply couldn't fathom his father's hatred even as he knew the burnt-brush paths it would take. No matter if it warned him against the worst that could happen, it was a painful insight to have and one that plagued him during his slow hours on his bike.

Slowly, through his heavy thoughts, Prowl became aware of a car. It was not in front of him, but behind him, as it had been for several blocks. The paintjob was dark, as were the windows. It was a slick, relentless black, wrapped around a tight car that toed the line between a sports car and a utility car.

He turned the corner. Left. The car turned a second after. Left. The hair on the back of Prowl's neck rose in warning, but he took the next street as if nothing was happening.

It went on that way for fifteen minutes, which meant many more lefts on his part and many more answering lefts from the car that was most certainly following him. Finally, Prowl turned onto a street that was completely bare of other cars. Swallowing the last prickly remnants of anxiety, the officer turned his lights on and took a sharp left into the opposite lane, gunning it. The roar of the motor and the yelp of his lights helped condense him down into an embodiment of protocol and professional suspicion as he looped around the car and stopped a few feet from its back bumper. He got off his bike and made himself stride toward the driver's side window before he could reconsider.

"License and registration," Prowl said shortly, hand out even before the windshield had slid all the way down. The man inside was older, with olive skin and slicked-back black hair and black sunglasses. As he wordlessly handed the officer his license, Prowl realized the make of his car was familiar: it was the car most commonly used as DPD squad vehicle a few years ago, just painted a solid black.

"Barricade," he said aloud, looking at the license, where the man's picture showed him looking much more young and clean-cut. The name sounded familiar as well; Prowl was almost certain he had heard it passed around at the DPD, but always in a whisper. He returned his piercing gaze to the man in the car. "It is late and I will make this short for both of our sakes. May I ask why you were following me?"

"Nostalgia, maybe," Barricade answered, voice rough as broken concrete. He grinned up at Prowl, one arm crooked indolently over his door. "Or maybe you just happened to be going my way. Other people have rounds, too."

"None that coincide so precisely with mine. Take off your sunglasses when you speak to an officer," Prowl ordered, voice coming out far more sharply than he intended. He stayed perfectly still until Barricade's thin mouth quirked up at the corners and he reached up and slid his glasses off his nose, then looked up at the officer with a mild expression that said _now why did you have to do that?_ Condescension dripped from his pose in waves. Prowl's anger spiked.

Before he could say anything, a dark shape in the front seat drew his attention. His hands tightened at his sides even before he made out the sharp crescent of the trigger and the gloss of the gun-barrel. Barricade's lazy eyes followed him down and the black sillouette of the handgun was interrupted by his thick fingers, which closed naturally around the handle and pulled it further into the car.

"Thought I put that away," he said in a way that implied, very clearly, that he hadn't. A jolt of cold went through Prowl's stiff frame and he had to fight to keep anything from showing on his face. He half-wished for his own blue glasses as his heart rate raised warily.

"I assume you are licensed to carry weaponry, Barricade."

"Very licensed," he answered simply, then affected an expression that was intended to be the very worst mockery of piteous. "In a city like this, who wouldn't be?"

"Then show me."

He did. He spent an alarmingly short time looking for his concealed-carrier license, as though he knew it would be required that night, and held it up for the officer's inspection. Prowl glared down at the gun in the man's hand for a moment before returning to Barricade, eyes dark and sharp.

"I ask you again, why were you following me?"

"As a service to you, kid," Barricade said with a slow chuckle, lazy eyes wandering over the younger man. He put the tip of his sunglasses between his teeth, leaning back in his car. The car that still had the tell-tale marks of an uninstalled police radio at the bottom of his windshield and then, with a click of a latch, a gun in the glove-box. "I like reminding cops what they're risking. Consider it a public service announcement from the gutter they're so good at ignoring."

"I have your name and license plate number. If I see you again tonight, you will become very well-acquainted with what you are risking by stalking an officer of the Detroit Police Department," Prowl said coldly, handing back the man's license.

"Oh, you won't see me," Barricade said, placing his sunglasses back on his nose and staring out the front window of his car with a chilling smile. "Have a good night, officer Prowl."

The opaque window sliced between them, rising up and up until the man was nothing but a repainted cop-car. Prowl stared at it for a moment more, trying to convince himself he had mastered the situation in the best way possible (but mostly trying to rationalize how Barricade had known his name without once looking at his ID tag), before he returned to his bike and kicked it into gear. He sat on it, motor running, until it became clear that he expected Barricade to go ahead of him. The suspicious man complied, dutifully pulling away from the curb and driving into the night. Prowl watched him go with a strange ball of tension sitting below his stomach, hands gripping restlessly at his handlebars. When he was sure the man was gone, he took to the streets again.

It wasn't three more blocks before another car was following him.

There was no safe corridor of procedure to hide in; all at once, the terror of pure possibility expanded violently in Prowl's mind as the surreal nature of the confrontation dissolved, forcing him to acknowledge the buried malevolence in the eyes of the man named Barricade. He was an ex-officer, Prowl remembered suddenly, and his exit had been anything but honorable. The fact that the dark shape at the man's side could have been turned on him at any moment sent Prowl into shivers so strong they nearly halted all thoughts.

A single well-aimed gunshot wasn't something that could be repaired with legal action and social service and that fact turned his courage and his wavering rationality to dust.

Street after street, the new car tailed him, always far enough away that he just got a glance of it as he rounded the corner. The weight of it crushed his spine, shortening his breath and chasing him to a bar. Anyplace there were people, even he was the one charged with protecting those people and it seemed foolish to hide among them. Foolish, but the only option. Pushing his bike against the curb, the officer tried not to move too quickly, tried not to let his boots audibly scrape against concrete as he dashed for the door and the light.

Once inside, he grabbed his helmet off his head and reached for his phone without even thinking about it. The murmur of sports shows and the glow of neon wasn't enough. Could he hear tires rolling against the broken pavement?

Three rings was all it took.

"Kid?"

Lockdown's voice was rough with sleep or irritation or just boredom. The sound of it failed to make a dent on the terror building in Prowl's tight chest. He found himself incapable of saying anything, but his partner seemed to sense the tense silence and cleared his throat.

"S'a matter, darlin?"

"Hello," Prowl said at last, voice dying down to a whisper as he looked away from the battered grey car waiting for him on the curb.

"What's wrong?" Lockdown demanded from across the city, too immediately, but the tone of his voice — the striking urgency — was the perfect frequency to shatter Prowl's pretense at nonchalance and send his anxieties spilling out.

"I'm on patrol," he said shortly, if just because his throat wasn't working. He breathed in deeply, digging his fingers into his wrist to steady himself. "I believe I am being followed."

"Listen to me. You go into the nearest building, a bar or a store, and you don't come out. I'm comin' to get you." Lockdown's voice was darker and harsher than he had ever heard it, startling Prowl into regular breathing, and then backpedaling. Calling him as though he had any rein on this situation was foolish. He shook his head, walking further into the mostly-empty bar.

"No. It is unnecessary. I was simply calling to ease my thoughts. I… apologize for being frightened, I shouldn't—"

He wanted to say that he was trained to deal with this and he should have just called for back-up and panicking was against all of his training, all the way from the police academy to the dojo, but the line was already dead.

Against his will, Prowl found himself sitting and waiting. He tried not to look outside. He tried not to look at his radio, which was on his bike.

Any attempt to call Lockdown back and ask him to stay at home decayed into staring hopelessly at his phone, knowing he was unwilling to go out onto the street again. It was too dark outside. He was not the same young man who had dashed into the alleyway after a criminal so long ago, and he was not in the right state of mind to fight anything or anyone. It was a surefire way to get himself killed, which was a thought he had possibly never had before.

He could die. All of this could fall apart. No one was invincible and he was not in a good place to begin with. It was the flip-side of the coin he had felt so strongly when cupped against Lockdown's chest on the day they stayed home together: all things worth having could be lost and risked being lost daily, some in split-second decisions far less idiotic than the ones he had just made.

Prowl's eyes began to sting sharply, if just from the rush of the moment and the crippling embarrassment he felt as Lockdown stepped through the door in jeans and a muscle-shirt, all white bulk in the dingy bar-lights. His expression was arrested under all of his black tattoos, like he was expecting to save his partner from a shoot-out, when really it was just Prowl sitting at the bar like a child told to sit and stay. When Lockdown spotted him and moved towards him with a wildcat stride, the police officer rose to his feet and hastily pulled on his gloves, glaring at the floor.

"This is unprofessional. I shouldn't have called you," he said through his teeth, regretting everything he had failed to do that day and everything he had done. Even the meeting with Optimus fell under his crushing scorn. All of it was useless. Bile and shame ate at his gut.

"Unprofessional, nothing," Lockdown's deep voice came from above his head, his heavy hand clapping onto his shoulder. He didn't pull away, but the big man's grip tightened anyways, holding him in place and making him listen through the mortified roar in his ears. "Somethin' like this happens, you call me. Everytime, anytime, kid."

Lockdown didn't tug him against his chest, but stood close enough that embracing in a public place was an option. Depending on if he needed it or wanted it, it was always there, just like the man who offered it. Suddenly, Prowl could breathe again and most of his self-loathing slipped away, replaced by quivering uncertainty.

Dissolved by the sound of the older man's voice and his smell, Prowl considered the prickly social repercussions for little more than a second before he stepped into Lockdown's arm and pressed himself against his chest, finding little energy to hate his weakness or admire his late-blooming courage.

"I have a gun," was all he could manage to say, voice dull. Lockdown's fingers tugged at his ponytail and Prowl shook his head against his lover's chest. "I shouldn't be afraid."

Anchored by that physical connection, Prowl knew why he was afraid. He was afraid because his own death would injure Lockdown in a way neither of them could imagine, but his lover had his own reason. The older man murmured it into his ear as he took Prowl by the back and reached for the door.

"They have guns, too."

More concerned with the fact the grey car was gone from the parking lot, Prowl let himself be led halfway to the older man's car before his words clicked in his mind.

Abruptly, his legs stopped moving. It was true. They had guns; he knew because he had seen it. But Lockdown hadn't.

Lockdown walked a few paces past him before turning back and looking at him with a demanding expression. There was a caginess in his eyes and stance that sent prickles down Prowl's back. His steel-toed boots were braced against the ground in the way that spoke of a readiness to run. Prowl's next accusation (as accusation it had to be) formed straight from the shrapnel of anxiety and fear in his chest, crunching it all into a heavy projectile.

"What is going on?" he demanded, voice incredibly clear.

For some reason he knew that Lockdown _knew_ and that revelation left him with locked knees and cold skin. The feeling only worsened when the older man turned away from him with a guttural noise of frustration or anger, one hand pushing over his tattooed scalp. Prowl swallowed with difficulty and made himself speak again.

"What is going on, Lockdown?"

"Wait."

"Wait?" Prowl repeated, tone incredulous. The hunch of Lockdown's huge back was both hunted and furious, but the twitching of his hands spoke of a conflicting emotion. The fact Prowl couldn't see his expression was suddenly of the deepest concern to him, forcing him forward a step. "What do you mean —"

"Just _wait_," Lockdown snapped like the word was all-important, or the only thing he could force out. He gestured angrily at the night, at Prowl's bike. "Stay in the station. Get someone to take over your patrols. Just for the next few weeks. Just hold on 'till then and everything can go back to normal."

"Why are you so unsurprised to find that some one is following me?" he demanded after a short, shocked silence. Lockdown's cryptic orders made no sense. Then, abruptly, Prowl's face shut down into the mask that had been his constant companion for most of his life: his almond eyes went dull and his mouth flattened. When he spoke, it came out hollow and fathomless. "You are keeping something from me."

Though Prowl could only see his profile, Lockdown's tattooed face contracted and sharpened as if he had made a terrible mistake and he knew it. Something caught in Prowl's chest, threatening to tear something larger than he could physically bear. He swallowed, but the cold didn't leave.

"You… are lying to me."

"Am not," Lockdown said stubbornly, then looked around the parking lot with the same cagey expression from earlier. Another sharp gesture stopped Prowl from opening his mouth. "There're some things I gotta do. Leave it be."

"What are you talking about?" Prowl asked, voice tightening beseechingly.

"Y'know that great gapin' debt hole we'll be in after your dad gets through with us? _If_ I don't get my ass thrown in jail, gimme three weeks and I can pay it off. Okay?" his partner said tensely, throat working haltingly. The night was warm, but not warm enough to account for the sheen of sweat on his white skull. Unease had already claimed Prowl's body, but the sight of his partner like this, ragged and manic, sent a spike of cold anxiety through his spine.

"I would gladly take the debt if you are doing something dangerous to get the money. I mean that," Prowl said, too quietly. When Lockdown's eyes didn't stop their dissection of the shadows, he stepped forward and grabbed the bottom of his lover's shirt, needing some sort of _contact_ to prove just that he was there with him, listening. The strange cars were almost forgotten in his push to reconnect with the man he loved and the man he needed to remain grounded with him through this harsh time. "Lockdown, I mean that."

"You mean it now," he said coldly, cruelly enough that Prowl let go and stepped away, shocked. He stared at the ground, internalizing the scraping sensation in his heart, then suddenly looked up.

"What did you go to prison for?"

"Doesn't matter." Lockdown shook his head, reddish eyes narrowed against the dark and his blurred view of the world. Prowl struggled against the lump in his throat.

"If you love me, you will tell me."

He couldn't believe he said it the moment it was out, but he needed to know that badly. Lockdown looked at him, betrayal and anger steaming from his very skin; Prowl could see _why are you pulling this shit_ in the line of his mouth, the rise of his monstrous white shoulders, but his relentless stare won out. He had stated a condition; Lockdown had to meet it. The mechanic grit his teeth, staring at the opposite side of the parking lot.

"Gang shit. Went in for gang shit," he growled. His hands clenched restlessly at his sides. Hands that had never hurt anybody, not too badly. Not enough that they wouldn't be able to go home to their families.

Prowl believed that with all of him.

"And you would never go back to that."

He tried to say it strong like it was truth, like he _knew_ it was, but it came out as a whisper. His voice died down to nothing inside of him — reduced to a twist of smoke –

when Lockdown looked further away, tattooed brows twisting in indecision or regret or frustration. After a long silence, the huge man cleared his throat and put out a hand for him.

"Let's get you home."

"Not until you tell me what is happening here."

Lockdown retracted his hand as if burned, lip curling again.

"It'll sort itself out," he promised, voice rough. "If you just _wait_, and trust me, we'll be good for a long time. Longer'n you can think."

"Does this have something to do with the racing circuit?" Prowl asked, fear rising under his skin.

"No," Lockdown said. Then, harder, "Yes."

"Lockdown, this… altercation with my father, it does not mean the end of us," Prowl insisted, gloved hands out almost pleadingly. His voice softened as he reached for Lockdown's hand and slid his thin fingers around the big man's white palm. "Don't you understand? My core concern is for our future. We will survive. I would much rather… subsist in poverty _with you_ than have you do illegal things to try and preserve our present."

Lockdown's face, for a split second, held a preternatural kind of revelation, one so sharp it couldn't be denied: like he realized the mistake that would ruin him. He had his chance — his choice of _what was more important_, a house or a lover – and he lost it. But such glimpses into the future so precise and clear are terrifying and they void the human mind by nature. It was gone in the next second, although he couldn't chase the clear, terrifying undercurrent from his blood. He motioned towards his car, teeth grit.

"Isn't gonna be any poverty. And none of that other word. C'mon, kid. Get in the car," he ordered. When there was no immediate scrape of riding boots, Lockdown looked up, reddish eyes narrowed. "Get in the fuckin' car."

Prowl looked at him stonily, eyes clear and fiery and horrified and hurt all at the same time. His mouth twisted like he wanted to say no. But after a moment, his gaze dropped to the concrete and, with horribly heavy steps, he crossed the last few feet towards the musclecar and got in. Lockdown handed him his seatbelt and fastened his own with a heavy click like a gunshot.

They drove home in silence.


	48. Law and Reason

Law and Reason

* * *

Lockdown dropped him off at the bar the next day, before work, and the sight of a mustard-yellow parking ticket plastered onto his dew-drenched bike sapped the last of the strength out of Prowl's chest.

He couldn't raise his head for the rest of the day. Anyone who spoke to him received dull mutters of three or less syllables. Optimus in particular looked worried when he had the time, which wasn't often, but he granted Prowl the week off of patrols without a moment's hesitation and the young officer didn't miss the Prime's frequent inquiring glances.

All the while, Optimus was looking for a nod of the head, a thin smile, and received neither. Prowl, empty down to his cells or his muscles or his tired heart, simply couldn't manage it.

It was one thing to deal with an unthinkable burden that they could only escape by a change of heart and, thus, divine intervention… but to pile mundane expenses on top of that, like the ticket or the price of bread, hit Prowl at the knees and suddenly made it too much to bear. Their financial situation was no longer an ideological battle that could be solved with a resolution, but a messy moment-by-moment struggle that he had been ignoring to keep his resiliency intact.

Now he felt their debt in five-dollar increments, multiplied by every step he took that day and the next, and the next. It was suffocating, inescapable, and whatever he felt for his father crept dangerously close to cold, uncontrollable hatred when his mind wandered outside the careful fence he set around it.

As the pressure increased from above, he became chilled at the base. It wasn't only the debt that deadened him, but the fact that Lockdown was lying to him. He didn't know how much, though he knew to what effect. He knew all too well, and a deeply buried part of him desperately wanted to be able to skip ahead a few weeks and see if Lockdown was really promising the impossible, but his conscience caught him cold. A life earned by illegal means was not a life at all but a stolen thing eked out at the expense of the law and others' livelihoods. For him, this was utterly nonnegotiable: it was the base of his personal code, no matter who operated within his personal sphere. No matter what they had taught him and how they had changed him into a person worth knowing. No matter what they promised, even if it was safety and a chance to be together in the ways that mattered.

He knew he needed to talk to Lockdown, but he couldn't get up the courage. Before the night on patrol happened, he had also intended to clear out a space for himself sometime soon, sit down, and call his mother. It was a requirement long overdue. He had phrases he was going to employ; honest questions to ask and apologies to imply no matter if he had no right to apologize for the actions of others. When Lockdown disappeared into his garage for the second time in as many days and avoided his eyes, however, that plan of cool premeditated action turned into a fumble for his phone and a real need to hear someone else's voice.

Sitting down on the couch, Prowl selected his mother's number from his list with shaking fingers and stared at the wall opposite to where Lockdown had disappeared. His phone had other numbers, unlike a year ago, but calling Torque was out of the question, perhaps because of how closely she was knitted to Lockdown and her current streak of good fortune. He couldn't brave her pain to tell her all of what had happened. He just needed to talk to someone about this; someone who meant something to him, or who should mean something to him. It wasn't even about convincing his mother to speak to Dai about lessening the charges. He needed a parent to ground him and was willing to trust that, even as nothing could be done, his mother could understand him.

Equipping the number scrambler he had downloaded from Lockdown a month ago for safety's sake, he pressed call.

The phone rang and rang. After the sixth ring, the sound seemed to travel further and further down the dark tunnel of the phone connection and his skin grew chillier. His mother always had her cell-phone close, if just because his father could need her at any time and expected her to be available. She did not work so there were very few places she could be in the house where she couldn't hear it.

After enough rings, the phone clicked and a pre-recorded message told him in a mechanical female voice that the number he had called is not available and would he like to leave a message?

He hung up before the beep could sound, then stared uncomprehendingly at his cell-phone. How could a moment that was supposed to put a dent in so many years of sadness and general distance simply fail to play out? His anxiety and his intentions were worth more than this; it needed to happen. He needed to speak to his mother. Before he could think too deeply on it, he dialed up her number again with a hard single-mindedness that he almost didn't recognize.

He listened as the same tone flat tone trilled on and on, only to end in the same message.

When he hung up again, his fingers were worked into the fabric of his khakis so hard his knuckles were white. Where was she? Being unable to contact her should have been little more than an annoyance, but irrational fear gripped his heart. Newly softened to what family should mean, he was struck by an image of his father deciding to rid himself of his entire family in a fit of rage and disappointment, leaving his mother to her own devices because she hadn't given him the son he wanted. Prowl knew she wouldn't survive. Remembering all of her phone calls since he had moved out, the full breadth of her helplessness gutted him and nearly made him sick.

Prowl flipped his phone shut and put it in his pocket, pressing his face into his hands for a moment. Breathing was suddenly hard. He needed to get up and do something or else the cold pressure would close in and rise over his head. Mechanically, he got up from the couch and went to the kitchen, as far away from the front door and the garage and the silence as possible.

As the day began to fade outside, the young officer washed the dishes. Cleaned the countertop. Went through the motions that had sustained him when nothing else could and then became distractions when he found things that were so much better.

Most of all, he remembered the times, good and bad, when Lockdown had snuck up behind him and vied for his attention alongside the pots and pans. He remembered how shocked he was that he could _feel_ the man's voice so much more than hear it, and how that vibration usually broke away the last of his indignant, petty aversion to being interrupted in a task. How they always came together afterwards, so naturally, so full of giving and playfulness and real feeling. The memories were still so close they were like breathing presences, as much a part of the kitchen as the cheap linoleum and far more vital to the image of the room he had formed since living there.

Suddenly, more than anything, Prowl wanted the older man behind him, thick white arms linked around his waist. Not talking, not yet. Even as he knew they needed it, that conversation was a blow he couldn't take before he had felt Lockdown with him, silent and promising and protective and sturdy. Uncompromising in all of these aspects and more, and that's where his danger lay.

Prowl exhaled and the sound was so close and trembling that he had to lean on the clean countertop, fingertips pressed against his stinging eyes. His body was so empty. It was too much to think about and too much to hope to survive. At that moment, all the darker because he was drenched in yellow spring light from the window, Prowl couldn't see how they could make it through the trial and his father and remain together.

To banish the leaden, poisonous feeling, he grabbed for the trashcan and propped his cell-phone onto his shoulder again, his mother's phone already ringing on the other end. As he knotted up the trash-bag with damp hands, he begged her silently through the distance between them to pick up, knowing if he spoke aloud, he would lose control. His mind told him he didn't want his first words to his mother to be an unintelligible sob, but farther away was the ultimatum that, if she didn't pick up, he would be anchorless and unable to keep himself on the ground, unable to even hope that his life as he knew it wasn't over.

When he began to hoist the bag of trash over his shoulder, the line opened with a clicking noise that made every hair on his skin stand to attention. But where he was expecting a sad mumble, already mid-apology, a hard, accented voice pierced his ear.

"Atlas. Who is this?"

Prowl gasped and jerked away, hand slapping down on the counter. The phone fell from his shoulder and hit the floor with a crack. His grip on the trash-bag melted to nothing and he stared at the small black contraption in horror; his father's curt demands to be answered, even distorted by distance and the tinny buzz of the speaker, made his throat seal shut. Hurriedly, as if leaving the hissing connection open longer would let more of Dai Atlas' hatred into his home, Prowl dropped to his knees and punched the end-call button three times.

He remained on the floor, knees stinging against the linoleum. His phone went into sleep mode before he could breathe normally again. Even then, it was all he could to do keep staring at it. It didn't make sense. Why would his father answer his mother's phone? Where was she?

Prowl reached for his phone but couldn't close his hand around it. True worry started to lock up his insides and he let out a choked breath as he grasped for it only to slide it under the counter, standing far too quickly and picking up the trash-bag again. He stalked out the back door and turned around the corner, needing to move and shake the feeling of dread off. The slam of the metal trashcans made his nerves twang, so much so that he nearly stopped and press a hand to his chest.

After a moment, he stopped – genuinely stopped – to try and gather himself. He ran his hands through his hair, retied it into a clean ponytail and took a deep breath. Brought the spring calm with it, like Yoketron had taught him. He focused himself and all of that spiky carcinogenic hysteria and fear and subdued it. It was too large to go away but the hole he carved out quickly filled with a watery sadness that made his breath come slower if just because he was reluctant to face the next few minutes. He knew what he had to do.

He opened his eyes and looked at the back door, then around the side of the house that would lead him to the garage. The garage and Lockdown, who was doubtlessly hunched over his tools with the same fear in his gut. There was no reason why they had to wall themselves away like this. If they intended to end this together, they had to do it together — and his assumption that Lockdown had ended his semi-illegal activities with the racing circuit had always been assumed but not affirmed. Perhaps it was time that he face the foolish assumption he had made and they could start from there.

There had to be a way out, but that way began with speaking to Lockdown.

More than anything, he needed the connection. He needed promise he wasn't alone in this even as Lockdown was attempting to protect them both. But being protected from the truth left him in a far more hollowing position than knowing everything, if just because they weren't together in it. Securing the latch on the trashcan, Prowl took another deep breath of spring air and began to walk around the side of the house, thinking only of the first thing he would say. When he turned the corner, hand already preparing to reach for the handle to the garage, he came face-to-face with Optimus Prime.

Optimus in his field blues with a gun. At the side of his house.

For a moment, Prowl simply couldn't make his superior's handsome face and blue eyes and pressed blues fit with the peeling paint of Lockdown's house. Then Optimus let out a hissing breath and lowered his gun, meeting the younger officer's stunned stare with one of his own.

"Prowl?" he whispered uncertainly, glancing behind him. "You're the second call?"

He couldn't say anything. He couldn't ask Prime in a plaintive voice what he was doing there. Not with the moment outside the bar in his head, clashing soundlessly with the fact that no one knew he lived here. Somehow, his insides petrified and his back straightened, an unspeakable fear greasing his throat as he spotted two other officers hugging the side of the ramshackle house. Their hands were on their guns.

He was still in his uniform from work that day.

"Just… arrived. What's the situation?"

"I didn't think Longarm…" Optimus began in a low voice, then just looked at Prowl for a moment. The blue of his eyes was so terrifyingly clear Prowl could see the sharp ridges and peaks in the blue the same way he could smell grass and motor oil and hear the distant scratch of a car pulling off the highway. More cars. All with lights.

His heart began to beat so hard his hands shook in time when his Prime shook his head tensely, waving away whatever misgivings he had in favor of the heat of the moment, and pointed to the window of the house with his gun.

"Gun smuggler. Most of the transfer routes through the city have been traced back to this house. The guy's been operating for months, feeding every pass-off point in Detroit proper, but no one caught it because it's so out of the way. We're just lucky Longarm managed to pin him down mid-shipment so we can bring him to trial."

"And you're here to…"

Prowl couldn't finish the sentence. The surreal nature of the moment stole his ability to speak or move so he just stared in horror at the man who had always done right without exception; the very bridge of his nose was infallible, as was the grim curve of his mouth. In contrast, his own features were amorphous, sliding off of his face, expression completely out of his control. He saw Optimus' clear eyes take on his vital confusion but reflect it, sending the oily awful feeling soaking back into his body. His throat tightened, draining his voice to a disbelieving whisper.

"There must be some mistake."

Behind him, something slammed, wood-on-wood; he turned around as Optimus raised his gun. No one heard the faint, shocked noise Prowl made as he saw a huge figure with green pants and a black muscle-shirt bolt across the orange-saturated field behind the old house, white arms pumping savagely.

Prowl's legs snapped into motion before his brain could register what he had seen. His boots were pounding across the hard ground in seconds, brush whipping past his legs. He heard his name behind him and knew somewhere, in the mechanical part of his mind that used protocol as cogs and levers, that he had to respond. He yelled over his shoulder.

"Secure the house!"

"You need backup!"

The sound of men slamming doors behind him put cracks in his lungs; tears in the loping man in front of him.

"I have backup, just get the guns!"

The lie stuck to the grass and he ran past it, chest already burning. He ran away from the invasion of his only home, the ripping of couch cushions and slam of cupboards, and pushed himself towards the white-skinned figure. He ran far beyond when he should have stopped running.

Ahead of him, Lockdown broke through the bush and into the forest, white skin disappearing in the otherworldly dimples of spring sunset on the trunks and trees. Heart constricting, Prowl pushed through the same rumpled bush and kept running, looking frantically to all sides for some glimpse of compact paleness because he couldn't think past finding Lockdown. He couldn't think past the equation that would combine the men from the DPD with the man he lived with: he only knew his last vision of his lover couldn't be his pulsing back across a field as men destroyed their home behind them.

Stumbling to a halt in the undergrowth in a thick patch of trees, Prowl tried to call out Lockdown's name but something greater than breathlessness stopped him, making the young officer push a hand to his aching chest. Then something rushed his periphery and he struck out, tortured heart pounding raggedly as something huge caught him around the waist and crushed him close. His hands were clamped around the man's arms before he could think, and he felt Lockdown tight and horrified underneath his fingers before his eyes ever accepted his lover's sweat-streaked face and wide reddish eyes, alight with panic.

"What are you doing?" he whispered. Looking into Lockdown's face, he had to say it again, just to get some of the helplessness out as he dug his fingers desperately into his lover's arms, into his tattoos. The complete wreckage of his world lay inside of him, building up and shoving against the back of his throat. "_What are you doing_?"

Suspended in a layer above Prowl's stinging panic, Lockdown looked down at the younger man like he wanted to do nothing else but absorb his almond eyes, the bridge of his nose, the vital, precious conflict in his expression and his very nature. There was an urgency and an intensity to that stare that struck a deep, terrifying note inside Prowl that he didn't even get to hear the end of: Lockdown let go of him before he could, turning from him.

"Runnin'. What's it look like."

There was something stale and tense in the way he said it as he looked over Prowl's shoulder, where he couldn't hope to see his house being kicked open. His work spilled over warming ground. His independence violated.

"You don't run if you have done nothing wrong!" Prowl nearly screamed it but his voice gave out, leaving him weak and shuddering. He couldn't make himself believe all of it was truly happening even as the Lockdown bent and finished ripping at a fresh patch of dirt, unearthing a stained bag that he looped over his wide shoulder. Prowl pointed at it, hardly able to control his fingers or his voice, which panicked to fill the silence between the trees and between them.

"What is that? No, Lockdown. You don't understand what is happening. They — there has been some kind of misinformation. This isn't about the racing circuit!" Lockdown's tight, methodical movements continued, unaffected. Panic flaring high, Prowl stepped forward to grab his arm again, shouting, "Running alone is an implication of guilt. It is imperative that we return this instant so I can prove that you're innocent!"

Lockdown straightened and froze, chin cocked at an angle that left him staring at the gently rustling tree line. The world around them was stained a bright green, vivid and alive and timeless; beams of warm orangey sunlight hit the canopy in stripes, making Prowl think unavoidably of the green runners down the sides of Lockdown's musclecar. The musclecar he used to race in, but no longer. The car that used to define him, in action and thorny creed, but no longer.

But then Prowl saw the big man frozen in the green light as if he could keep the moment just as it was, because there was something darker waiting beyond. His red eyes were pinned on the trees, bag dragging his big shoulders down. A prickle of fear hit Prowl too late.

"You are innocent," he said, with such a convulsion of force and anger and fear that it felt as if he would bend reality with the force of his want.

Lockdown breathed out and finally looked at him, a world of answering regret and anger and fear in his own eyes. That feeling, fiery and terrifying as it was, became necessary to Prowl's very breathing and yet it faded the longer Lockdown looked at him steadily, so steadily. Something else bled out with him along with that push, narrowing his world to the unnamable expression in the older man's face and filling everything else with blackness.

"I been a lot of things, kid," Lockdown muttered to the ground, eyes closing briefly. He straightened the bag on his shoulder. "Innocent's never been on the list."

"No. No." Prowl stepped away, dislocated fingers falling from the man's warm arm. "Please, no."

Lockdown reached for him. It was a simple, pleading gesture, made all the more helpless by the bulge of his muscle, that punctured his shuddering chest: Prowl flung an arm out, keeping Lockdown away before the last of his sense was crushed.

Gun smuggler. Strange noises at night. Lying to him.

For how long?

"You can — you can plead guilty," he grit out, mind reeling in a cold space of conditions and mitigations. "The judgment might be lighter than you think, they might… release you on parole in ten years or less —"

But it was ludicrous the moment it came out of his mouth, because he knew just from looking at the man — he had known it from the second he met Lockdown and every other second after that – that imprisonment was the one thing he couldn't survive.

Prowl heard him again, on the night they couldn't be separated from each other: _Ain't goin' back to prison._ Suddenly, he was buckling under a grief so sudden and so horrible he couldn't let it out, which left him unable to do more than whimper sharply when Lockdown stepped forward and grabbed him close with a rough sound of pain and regret. His hand knotted into Prowl's loosening hair, mouth pressed to his temple. Lockdown held him so close it hurt and yet he struggled to keep him there. Prowl shook, consumed by the scraping proximity of the one who would be ripped from him; he breathed haltingly into his chest, the symbol of the strength he'd given him. A place to be. A home.

"You gotta forget about me."

Lockdown's voice came from above him, ragged and tight. Prowl didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it, couldn't comprehend the idea of leaving Lockdown here or leaving his memory with the house and the woods, so he shook his head. His lover's breath caught and Lockdown buried his face in his hair, hand tightening on his back with a manic desperation.

"Just tell 'em everything that happened. You didn't know a thing. They'll see that."

Prowl was dissolving.

Everything he had come to call his own was dying in the other man's arms, warping and quailing around the hard lump in his chest, saying _no, please no_ with every quick breath. He tried to fight the suffocating tide of what was to come, stealing every sharp moment in Lockdown's chest as he was crushed from the inside, from the rising pressure. His rapid heartbeat became the footsteps of approaching officers in his mind and he clung more tightly to Lockdown's shirt, inhaling cologne and safety and knowing that the hard part was this had never been completely out of the question.

"Tried to keep the house. Tried to keep you. Was doin' it for you. I'm sorry. M'so fuckin' sorry," Lockdown whispered into his hair, inhaling sharply when Prowl made a blind, horrorstruck noise and tried to push into him, tangle them so they would never be separated. He held that breath and held Prowl as long as he dared, fingers pressing numbly through the young man's hair until he could say what he had been sent into his life to say. He swallowed thickly.

"You're a good kid, Prowl. Don't let anyone ever tell you any different."

Prowl turned away from the callused hand on his cheek, but it was a brief fight. Lockdown forced his chin up for a kiss he hardly felt but for the desperate clench of his body against Lockdown's, the synchronized kiss of their legs and chests and trembling stomachs as the big man crushed him close, creating an impression that no other person could fill until it faded with the evening pressures of distance and silence and betraya and anger and sadness and, finally, acceptance.

Prowl kissed him as he had never kissed anyone, loved him as he had never loved anyone, until Lockdown's big hands took him by the shoulders and, painlessly, hurt him in a way he would never fully recover from. At first, Prowl struggled out of instinct when Lockdown shoved him around and clamped his white arm down hard across his aching throat, the older man's muscled body suddenly an iron wall at his back. Then, as his skin became blurry and Lockdown's forearm began to blend numbly into his neck, Prowl's hand slid from the big man's shaking wrist and his eyes drifted upwards, searching only for some flash of black-inked white. As his lungs caved, his legs weakened underneath him and his last hope was that Lockdown's would stay strong and carry him away and, someday, back again.

After the young man in his arms went limp, Lockdown carefully lowered him to the ground. His white fingers, the real ones, paused only to curl around a loose strand of black hair before he pulled the young man's hair-tie out and shoved it into his pocket with a fumble and a short, stifled breath. Then he turned and ran, becoming a fading heartbeat with every slam of his feet against the litter-strewn floor of the woods.

A few minutes later, Prowl's loose hair caught the roving beams of yellow flashlights and the first thing he felt when he returned to the dark forest was the cold of metal around his wrist.


	49. Loose Ends

A/N: I lightly pulled on some Odd Moments material here and I forget that not everybody reads both. To fully understand Optimus' conflicted feelings about Sentinel (and the whole Optimus-Elita-Sentinel train wreck), check out 'What It's Like' and 'Tangled Web'.

Sometimes loose ends get tied up; other times, they get caught and unravel you until you don't have enough material to stand.

* * *

Loose Ends

* * *

"And what… was the suspect's relation to you?"

Optimus said it softly, knowledge heavy on his handsome face. But, no matter his care, he couldn't stop the silence afterwards that called for an answer.

Sitting behind the metal interrogation table, Prowl felt something cork inside himself, aching body sick and supersaturated with fear. Exhausted. The past twenty-four hours had passed in flashes of yelling, horrified stares and yanking pressure on his wrists, but part of him was still being crushed to a damp chest in the woods and he couldn't call that part of himself back to face what was happening. He couldn't simply ground himself in a chair under these harsh lights and doom himself.

Their house was broken open. Gutted. His belongings were evidence. The guns were being packaged into plastic by the time he was led past them in handcuffs.

Prowl took a trembling breath, fingers knotted on the edge of the table. He closed his eyes to block out the reality of the room and, as he knew in painful detail from the protocol he had never once thought to apply to himself, what was expected of him. But he couldn't.

He didn't want to speak of Lockdown to anyone, and not just because they wouldn't understand. He couldn't even protest of his lover's good nature in good faith because he had known less about Lockdown than he ever expected and that realization robbed him of the ability to put his skewed life into naïve words. Stupid, stumbling, trusting assumptions. Lies to himself, compounded by the lies Lockdown had told him. How much was even real?

In front of him, he heard a sharp footstep and a rustle of uniform blues.

"He asked you a question, officer."

Prowl couldn't look up; it was enough to feel Sentinel's wide shoulders and thick arms and white teeth bearing down on him, all radiating a sadism of revenge delayed years too long. Petty hatred given the perfect chance to stick and grow in a bed far too thick with real tragedy. He was enjoying this: the gleeful hard feeling that vibrated out of him was too much to take. Prowl heard another foot tap the floor and opened his eyes to see Optimus put out a hand towards his old friend, face grim.

"Give him a moment, Sentinel."

Nothing had penetrated his haze until that moment. Even when he was dragged off the forest floor, he was unable to feel or think. But in that room, at the sound of that deep, protective voice, Prowl finally crumbled and looked down at the table. All of his feelings, twisted and burned, hit the surface at once and he took a breath, tears burning at his eyes.

"He was my… my lover. Of half a year."

The admission crushed him, if just because it was made into an _admission_ by the cold machines recording it for evidence, later to be put into a transcript beside a Helectiva stamp of his name. It was more humiliating than he could imagine, but he was already so hurt he only felt half of it. Optimus was less shocked that he should have been, but also less ashamed. He just looked at the hunched young officer with a compassion that he would have needed so, so badly if he hadn't been in a white room that echoed like a prison with a camera recording his every gulp and twist of expression, his every tremble and forced confession of self.

These were things he had wanted to tell the world slowly, quietly, then return at night to Lockdown and his cockeyed grin, proud of his courage.

"Well that makes things interesting," Sentinel sneered above him. "So, what, you two were bunk buddies and you didn't even notice a fucking truckload of illegal weaponry being dumped in his basement every week or so?"

"I was not aware he had a basement," Prowl said dully, voice nearly a whisper. The disgust in Sentinel's voice pierced him but he took a deep breath, putting every iota of himself into keeping his voice steady with jargon, which never cracked or cried. "The transfers must have been made while I was on duty or asleep."

Sentinel's scoff hit him like a punch to the gut.

"Of all the fucking ironies: a cop distracted from a million-dollar illegal arms smuggling operation running right under his fucking nose by what? Work."

Prowl cringed, feeling all his lifelong expectations for himself crashing in on his husk chest; useless didn't even begin to cover the self loathing and explosive panic and pain he felt. All crashed with the hole to his right, where Lockdown's protection had failed in the last and worst way, leaving him alone.

_Ain't goin' back._

Lockdwn had said it and he hadn't even known. Hadn't even imagined.

"There's got to be something more. Suspicious guys coming to the house, unexplained influxes of money. An idiot would have known that a freelance shipping monkey couldn't have made enough cash to keep up a house like that!" Sentinel yelled, thrusting his hand into Prowl's vision; the younger man flinched away, trying not to lock up. Trying to say something that made sense, both to Sentinel and himself.

"He… did work on cars."

"Mechanic work, bullshit," Sentinel snapped, a vein standing out on his thick neck. "You should have known."

"I paid rent," he whispered.

"Oh, yeah? How much?"

"All I could afford. Three hundred a month."

"For a house like that, full as Detroit is? A thousand a month," Sentinel hissed. Muscle-bunched body taut with victory, he bent low to sneer at Prowl and slammed his hand down on the interrogation table. "You're the most pathetic excuse for a cop I've ever seen."

"Sentinel, that's _enough_," Optimus cut in, voice ringing strong and cold, but Sentinel's fever had been long in brewing. It had turned his neck a choking red and knotted his hands into fists. Pushed beyond his limits by Prowl's unbelievable stupidity, he turned and pointed at the young man bent double over the table with his hands over his face, empty of anything except for grief and the shadows of what he wanted to believe, and began to yell.

"He was in on this, Optimus! You can't tell me he just let all of this just float by him. You know who the perp is, you know what was following him. That's probably why D-Con picked him in the first place, because he had nothing to lose. The facts just don't fucking add up, there's no way someone as stupid as that man was could have kept all of this from a cop, even a failure like this. Atlas had to have known from the fucking beginning, he just didn't want to give up his boyfriend!" He turned, blue eyes burning, wide mouth distorted by the grit of his teeth. "Isn't that right, faggot?"

Prowl barely had time to look up. The hateful word had barely punctured his skin when Optimus stalked forward, grabbed Sentinel by the front of his jacket and yanked him away from the table, then slammed his fist into his old friend's face. He did so without a sound, face contorted with a rage so righteously fierce and pure and _old_ that Prowl could only stare. Blood seeping from his nose, Sentinel grunted gutturally and fell straight to the ground, head smacking the concrete when Optimus' hand mechanically unhooked from the front of his jacket.

The young man couldn't help recoiling when Optimus turned that burning gaze on him, but then the tall Prime was next to him and hoisting him out of his chair, pulling his arm over his shoulder and walking him past the man bleeding on the floor. Optimus, his friend and protector, led him out of the room and pushed him to his chest, forcing out every bit of self-hatred and terror and wretched disbelief. Holding him tightly, his Prime let him sob against his chest in the hallway until security came and, like a rising tide, the questioning began again.

Only this time, the Prime was answering questions right alongside him and refused to apologize for what he had done. What was more, he didn't let go of Prowl until Prowl himself stepped away. The young officer answered the rest of any questions put to him on his own two feet, but with his hand shaking on Optimus' arm.

* * *

_Cooking for people other than herself had always been one of her favorite things, so Torque had a sweet, absent smile on her face when her front door opened. She looked over and turned down her radio, then her smile brightened into a grin when a bit of paleness detached itself from the shadow of the entry hall and Lockdown walked into her tiny living room, a specter in a huge black hoodie._

"_Need some money," he said into his collar, tugging upwards on his zipper._

"_Hello to you, too," she said mildly. She gave his jacket a curious look, glancing at the open window and the warm night outside, but nonetheless reached for her purse with an unchanged smile. Glad, maybe, that she could indirectly pay him for the last time he fixed her car. She dug out her wallet. "How much?"_

"_Much as you can let go."_

_Torque frowned as her pan of onions gave an alarming pop and then looked up. Lockdown had pushed his hood back and was running his hand over his inked skull, watching the door and then the floor. She froze with her hand above her open wallet, looked at his cagey, anxious posturing, then pulled out two fresh hundreds and walked over to hand it to him. The huge man looked at the crisp green leaflets and the fat numbers in the corner before grabbing it out of her open hand without touching her, folding it and sticking it into his pocket. _

_Two hundred was a lot for them; more than enough for anything Lockdown had ever wanted to do at any one time. But there was something about the way he barely looked up at her and muttered his thanks that found her anxious to say more, give more. Her heart cringed under some unseen pressure, rising all between them and behind Lockdown's big back._

"_That's the only cash I have on me. I mean, besides some small change, but if you give me a day — "_

"_No. It's enough."_

_His big hand went into his pocket and felt around there, as if making sure the slick new papers were still there, unbearably thin and new for all he needed them for. Then, as Torque watched him with a worried expression, Lockdown reached behind him and tugged his hood up again, giving his old friend a clipped nod before turning and starting for the door._

_He smelled like fresh forest dirt._

"_Lockdown?"_

_The piercing tone of her voice was enough to freeze him mid-step. Slowly, Torque stepped toward him and, like she was soothing a trapped animal, put a small brown hand on the man's arm. His mechanical hand clenched in response, whirring fitfully. Unseen over his shoulder, the small woman looked up at him with wide eyes, breath suddenly high in her chest._

"_Darling. Where are you going?"_

_As she watched his wide, invincible back, he turned, eyes locked on the floor. Then he looked at her, at her tense, fearful expression on her heart-shaped face. The true care in her eyes. _

_He closed his eyes and blocked the sight of her out, the push of her care for him (unrewarded and now martyred), then reached forward. His big arm found his way around her waist with only a little difficulty, only bumping into her hip once. Then, simply because he had stopped reaching, he held her for a moment. He heard and felt her breath catch and then her cool hand touched his cheek. He leaned into it, feeling a stunning lack of the barrier that had always been between them there: a cotton ball, a bloody rag. Her cleaning him up, taking care of him, but now without the excuse of blood. He thanked her with simple stillness and simple touch, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back._

_Then he drew back and looked at her with an expression that would have been sad if it hadn't been so dead, and rumbled, "Best don't tell anyone you saw me."_

_He walked away and pulled the door shut before she could say anything, leaving her alone with a gap she had to hide before her guest arrived. And she would hide it, thinking it a small under-the-couch thing and not a silence that would remain with her the rest of her life. Already, her little house – her life – felt emptier._

_After a moment, Torque frowned and went back to her onions, already reaching for her phone to call Prowl._

* * *

"You don't understand. I need to see him. Please, I need to see my…"

She was incoherent. Panicked. She didn't have anything in her pockets, not even a cell-phone, and she looked far more hunted and naked than that, her tiny hands twisting endlessly over each other. They told her she couldn't come through. They told her it was a restricted zone, but she didn't listen. She wouldn't leave, but told them the same thing.

"I need to see him. I can't leave until I've seen him."

Out of options, they called the Prime up to the front and, when he heard who she was and where she had come from (the only things she could say when pinned by his blue eyes, they burst desperately out of her mouth again and again), he let her through with a grim, understanding expression that made any officer on guard go silent.

The door to the private office opened quickly and hit the back wall, making Prowl look up from his hunch on the same chair his father had left him in so many weeks ago. He stared unresponsively at the haggard-looking woman in the doorway, hollowed by his questioning session and weighed into the floor by the facts that grew heavier the more time he had to think on them. Optimus, barely visible over her shoulder, nodded at him.

The woman was wearing a pink dress and her brown hair was ratted around her weak shoulders. She stared back at him, pretty in an eternally young, tiny-figured way but the crash of sleeplessness and panic on her face took away the majority of her beauty. She looked as lost as he did. Then his eyes widened and his mother's hand dug into the hem of her dress and she rushed him with a stifled sound, crashing to her knees and throwing her arms around him.

"Mother," Prowl whispered over her head, trying to absorb the pressure of her grip and her sudden presence. He stared down at her as she sobbed once, hard and sharp, then looked up at Optimus, who simply returned his gaze: telling him it was real. His mother, always hundreds of miles away with her husband between them, was there.

That simple solidarity forced him to put his shaking hands on his mother's arms. His blank expression flinched into pain when she shook at his touch, holding onto him all the more desperately.

"Mother," he said quietly, his own voice tightening. "Mother, what are you —"

"What did he do to you?"

Prowl watched uncomprehendingly as his mother pulled herself from his chest and looked up at him, face pink and twisted with anguish so fresh and sharp that he couldn't even understand it. He couldn't answer; couldn't think who 'he' was until she gripped onto his arm and pressed his hand to her wet face.

"He came down here. He said he wanted to talk to you about something important, but when he came back, h-he told me… I tried to ask him about where you were, how you were and he wouldn't answer me. For days and days, I don't know how long, I tried to ask and finally he told me that… I shouldn't ever speak to you again. That was all he said."

She breathed in sharply, running her thumb over the back of his hand and pushing her other hand to her mouth. Above her fingers, her expression was pleading, beseeching, disbelieving, horrified; a twisted mirror for the swell of emotions that had filled Prowl since he had been pulled from the forest floor.

"So I took some money from him and I… I got a plane ticket and I left my cell phone so he couldn't follow me and I…"

He listened to her ramble on and couldn't help but hear how every little thing was planned out, every little disobedience colossal in her mind. Prowl stared at her, trying to comprehend her world even as her helpless tone pulled at his heart in a way too large to think about. It was clear even as they had a common enemy, she was seeking absolution from her very son for her crimes against her husband.

Slowly, Rosanna's hand fell from her mouth and clapped over her heart.

"I stole it from him. God help me, I stole from my husband."

The horrified, rising pitch of her voice threatened to drown her, green eyes freezing on the wall as things – punishment, disapproval, failed expectations, the man waiting for her in the place he had deemed her home – played out in her mind. But then Prowl's fingers brushed against her bare arm and those blank eyes flickered downwards and, seeing the beautiful boy who needed her, suddenly filled with the woman who had stolen the money for her son. With a choked noise, Prowl's mother wrapped her arms around him and shook her head, sobs shaking her slight frame.

"Prowl. Oh my God, my baby. I love you. I love you so much. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I was never… I didn't do anything. I couldn't say no to him. I just c-couldn't."

She mumbled on, purging twenty-three years of helplessness and regrets. Prowl listened. As her apologies washed over him, he crumbled around her and, slowly, his hand moved along her shoulder and then her hair, numbly smoothing the tangles from it as if it would bring them both some measure of peace. Then, suddenly, she pulled herself up again and took his face in both of her small, warm hands. She looked at him, visibly choking back more tears.

"You're gay, aren't you."

Prowl's breath caught in his throat, the darkest portion of his chest flayed open in a moment, but there was no disgust in her voice. The only thing he could hear and feel was a misery too great to express; a wounded tone that didn't speak of disappointment but years and years of knowing and being unable to help because of the force crushing them both into molds. She had known, and it was one of her greatest pains.

Without even realizing it, Prowl's hand knitted itself into her hair, locking her to him.

"I have a partner. I would like for you to meet him," Prowl barely heard himself say as he looked into her overflowing green eyes. Everything about him was mechanical, eyes blank, face pale, until his voice suddenly cracked. "I simply do not know where he is at the moment."

He jerked once and stifled his sob down to nothingness, but his mother still felt it as if it cramped her own gut; she stood straight on her knees and held him while he cried. Finally broken under the weight of the past day, he cried of loss, both new and bleeding and old and invisible. At that moment, he could only feel the gaps in himself, where he had lost the only man he'd ever loved and never known his mother.

But somehow, the filled spaces in him held strong around those quivering sinkholes, in the man who respectfully turned away at the door with a pained expression; in the woman closing the distance that was never entirely their fault; in the panicked messages on his phone and the friends waiting outside, all refusing to believe in his guilt no matter their silence. His world remained and one day he would be healed enough to fill it. Until he could, he would try to help his mother find her own.

Lockdown may have been gone, but he wasn't.


	50. Cyclic

A/N: Thank you for reading, guys. I want to be sure to say that, though I dallied on the end of this very long fic and some may accuse me of taking an easy (or incredibly hard or maybe just unforgivably cheap) way out, **this ending was planned from the beginning.** And I'm sort of sorry for that, because it means I'm an awful bastard with no regard for emotions.

Though painful, I like the lesson here because it's one that shows up again and again, no matter where we look in life. Where one story ends, another one begins. For every stage in our life, there is a person who will come to us to teach us what we need to know to face the next stage. Some friends and lovers last us lifetimes, others exit and we have to let them go and be grateful we knew them at all. I believe this with all of me and I think I unconsciously made this story to reflect this life-view that I've only recently come to terms with.

So, preaching over, live long and prosper. Thus begins G1, which will be left to your imagination. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, so go out there and rock your free will, kids.

Thanks for giving a stupid AU a chance.

* * *

Cyclic

* * *

"And then?"

The cafe was quiet. It was empty, or else he would have feared being overheard — but the waitress was a thoroughly negligent young thing who was too concerned with texting her boyfriend to pay attention to their stories. Prowl took another sip of his tea, pressing his lips together.

"He knocked me out."

His matter-of-fact voice intimated this was far from the first time he had told the story, which was, in a sense, true. It was his simple control that left his audience comfortingly unaware that this was the first time he had told it in a personal setting. His almond eyes were the strangest mixture of steely and aware, but captivating all the same.

"Escaped. Lord knows to where."

Jazz lips pursed to whistle and he found he couldn't. The silence between the two of them seemed very important at that moment, if just because it was laying open before Prowl, giving him more time to speak. Just from looking at the man, Jazz would have never assumed he had so many words in him. After a moment, Prowl cleared his throat and shook his head.

"I had a very, very difficult time trusting anyone for a long time after that. But I had things to work on: my relationship with my mother. Work itself. You have full knowledge of the manner in which we found out that agent Longarm was actually a spy for Megatron. Everything was chaos while Magnus was in ICU, and it was even more tragic when he died. Our office has been in nothing less than a state of crisis for the past seven years, I think. But once I was given a pardon by Optimus and appointed to tactician, I had no choice but to come to terms with the events that had transpired. Others had need of me."

"I don't believe that fer a minute."

Surprised, Prowl looked up with an urbane expression. Jazz shook his head firmly, tapping his knuckles on the table.

"That cant've been the end of it. I mean, I get needin' ta shape up fer others, but how'd you justify it t'yerself? Can't just decide ta get over things like that."

Prowl continued studying the other man, who seemed to realize in the next moment that he had spoken out of turn; the SIC watched Jazz straighten in his chair with a slightly chided look on his face, then sighed softly and looked out the window of the café.

"It took far longer than I ever anticipated, even when I was certain it would consume the rest of my life. The facts are irrefutable and difficult to knit into both my vision of him and my duties. I still have difficulty… being unpartisan." He smiled down into his tea, a wounded expression that very few in his ranks had seen. "He was an enabler. Never did evil directly — he was in no way evil, never spiteful — but through his selfishness and simple need, he allowed the harm of hundreds of others."

"But you had it bad for him," Jazz said quietly, unable to help himself. The expression on Prowl's face became so unsure, so vitally conflicted, that the other man almost took it back and ended the conversation right there. But Prowl closed his eyes and nodded.

"I said I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone. At the time, it was the obvious truth simply because I had never loved anyone — never allowed myself to love anyone." He held his mug lightly between his hands, focusing on the simple sensation of the glaze against his fingers. "But now, after so many years, I can still say it is true. I loved him and I still do, in a way that defies anything we regard as morality or time, or even reason. He is past me, but with me at the same time. He made me who I am today, even in his betrayal, and that is something to remember."

Jazz let out the breath he had been holding since they sat down, leaning back in the tiny café chair that barely held his lanky length and absorbing the difficulty of the moment.

He couldn't quite believe it all. No, he simply couldn't believe it, and was half-waiting to wake up sometime soon. For being such a stiff operator, Prowl was quite the story-teller – then again, maybe the sheer contents of his tales overwhelmed his deadpan delivery and unflinching face. Jazz had heard a few of the newbies at the DPD whispering about some crap in the tactician's past and immediately shrugged it off as office gossip about a higher-up that probably wasn't too popular. When Bumblebee came by and told them to shut the hell up, he thought it was just a way of keeping the hierarchy in place, even as he was a little surprised at the boy's sharpness. He never would have imagined all of it was true.

But maybe the more amazing fact was that he had just gotten a first-hand recount of it all from a man who obviously kept his business very, very close to his chest.

Mind wandering, Jazz absently turned and looked out the full-length café window, watching the thin snow build layer by layer over the body of his white Porsche. It was a beautiful thing, resplendent in blue and red stripes with a fantastically crisp four on the front. A white and black cop car, long Prowl's vehicle of choice, sat parked outside.

Perhaps seeking a small escape from his own thoughts, Prowl followed his gaze and looked at the police car as if seeing himself, black and white and crafted of nonnegotiable lines. A sturdy vehicle and an icon of the law he lived by. His slick black and gold motorcycle was stowed in his garage under a protective sheet, never handled but for joy rides. He knew its place, now.

Prowl had turned thirty a few months ago, completing his sixth year as Second in Command of the Detroit Police force. He was a solid but rather serene man, more prone to smiling, but never unnecessarily. Exacting. Punctilious. Hard to impress, even harder to get close to. In some ways, he was the DPD's greatest anchor; in all ways, considering where he had come from, he was its most unexpected leader.

A few weeks ago, the station received a transferred officer from New Orleans, recommended to Optimus as a top-rank undercover agent. They had been looking for one ever since mounting their true offense against D-Con Industries and Megatron and this man finally seemed to fit the bill. The expert, Jazz, arrived early; obviously caught off-guard, Prowl rose in the middle of a meeting to greet him with a prickly formality that the saboteur would learn to expect only from him.

The rest of the office was pretty chill, but what stopped Jazz in his tracks was a tan, steady man with defined cheekbones, gorgeous eyes, a dark shirt, impressively starched khakis, and, once he was outside in the Detroit sunlight and opening the car door for him, the strangest triangular sunglasses — not that the New Orleans cop could boast, with his much-loved ice blue visor.

"Regardless of how it ended, I realize it was what I needed at the time."

Jazz looked up, startled, then settled in again, studying Prowl's pensive expression.

"He taught me what I needed to know. Valuable, painful lessons. Self-control, not blind denial. Comfort with myself. Humility."

"Sounds like a regular guru," Jazz commented, twining his hands over his knee.

"Not in the manner you're thinking of," Prowl says dryly, smiling to himself: remembering the unprincipled, smirking, spiked fiend of a man as he was in the height of their small-house glory. With it came their scrapes, their simple disparities of personality. "I did, however, learn more about cooking than I ever needed to know. After a time, a small part of me was convinced he kept me around for little more than my quiche."

"I'm sure people'd keep you around for more than your cookin'," Jazz chided him with a quirk of his brow. Prowl returned it with one of his own, only deadly serious.

"I also cleaned."

"Now that's negotiable…" Jazz whistled, tapping his chin. "Edgin' on domestic servitude, akhsally."

"It was an ugly compulsion," Prowl agreed mildly, smiling again. Jazz studied him for a moment, then laughed a bit, drawing an interested look from the younger officer. He shrugged.

"I dunno. I jus' can't imagine you as anythin' other than you are now. Even that's a little mind-bogglin'. Y'may act stiff, but y'still seem really in touch with yourself."

"I am now," Prowl agreed, accepting the praise with an inclination of his head. "It took many scraped knees to get there, however."

Jazz looked at him, marveling a little bit, then remembered what he had wanted to ask before. There was a loose end to Prowl's tale he was particularly wrapped up in, considering his own family experience.

"So what about your mom?"

The slight softening of the SIC's expression thanked him, subtly, for caring enough to ask.

"After she flew to be with me, she lived with my companion for a year and, when she could manage it, took training courses and began to teach elementary school," Prowl explained. He smiled, soft and real, recounting and remembering his mother's growths and the way the strength came back into her own smile after the first year of living on her own, away from Dai. "She now runs a book club and sings in a nondenominational church choir. It is simple, but for the first time in her life, I think she is happy."

"Hey, anythin' that makes ya happy. She sounds like she came a long way, specially considerin' where she started from. But… did I hear you right? Your friend bunked your mom for a full year?" Jazz asked, expression hinging on pure disbelief.

"She is a good friend. Although she needed an excuse to spend more time with her current husband, I suppose," Prowl reasoned with an almost playful quirk of his mouth. The flicker of mirth was made all the more startling by its sudden disappearance as the Second in Command of the DPD suddenly frowned, eyes darkening. "Still, my mother has had a difficult time creating a new life and moving from her previous one. The trial with my father was a painful thing, even when we determined, with the help of our station medic, that he was lying about his broken arm. The case was dismissed as Lockdown was nowhere to be found."

Prowl had to stop for a minute, face pale. Jazz could almost see his mechanical insides rearranging, clamping down on the echo that the name set loose inside of him. Then, with a small nod, he began again.

"Theirs is what is commonly called a green-card marriage. I was angered yet unsurprised to find this out. She told me that they met when she was on a teacher-exchange program in Japan and he pushed her into a marriage after only a few months of knowing her. He did so to get to America where there was a top-ranked company job waiting for him. All of this was strewn out in painful detail at the divorce proceedings. But even as she was desperate to get away from him, I believe my mother loved him in order to survive her life. He continued to haunt us in various ways. When I first cut my hair short and walked into see her… she saw me out of the corner of her eye, I suppose, and stood up so fast she spilled her drink. A hot drink. There was… something close to terror in her face."

The crash of hot coffee on the floor, the squeak of a chair. The breathless moment: one side terrified, the other echoing with that fear yet uncomprehending of it. The dread and pain that corkscrewed in his chest when his mother breathed out and her hand, shaking like it hadn't for months, drifted up to her mouth and pressed there.

"Oh my god."

"She told me that I looked just like him," he said quietly, wrapping his fingers tighter around his mug. He took a deep breath. "I told her that was fine, because I was a completely different person."

Suddenly, Jazz could see the determination and belief in the other man's eyes and knew what Prowl had looked like that very day, holding his hand out to his mother. Taking her down from her ledge and leading her to her chair, both hands on her shoulders. Even as it was fully imaginary, that image hit the older officer and stuck in his chest as Prowl quietly relived the moment in his own head: playing the movie out to its end so he could take it off of his mental projector and stow it away again.

He was so strong, so self-contained. Jazz was painfully interested in him, something he couldn't say was true for much of anyone else. He only realized he was staring when Prowl looked up and his expression became a little startled, as if the SIC was surprised to see that he was still listening. Prowl smiled slightly.

"It has been a long time since I mentioned coffee in such a casual manner. I apologize for my loquaciousness today. I promise you it will not be a common occurrence." Before Jazz could raise his hands to wave off the apology, Prowl regarded him appraisingly with his sharp almond eyes and the other officer fell still, feeling something far deeper than his mocha skin or wary expression being picked apart. "I think I should not tell you all of this… but I _feel_ confident that you are a safe person."

Perhaps no one else but an informed soul would have heard the emphasis on the two modes of function: logic and emotions. Prowl counted as one of his greatest achievements his ability to trust them both and use them where appropriate. He was a fully grown person now, not just a fully grown man. Across the table from him, Jazz gave a short, overwhelmed chuckle and shook his head.

"Don't you worry, man, I'm safe as can be. I don' rock gossip — and I can relate," Jazz assured him, leaning back and patting at his knee with a knowing expression. "I got my own family troubles and I've had a few boyfriends who didn't quite get that I was a cop first and a boo second."

Prowl's nose wrinkled at the odd term, but a small smile was still there. He nodded in understanding. A comfortable silence overtook them, one of sipped tea and easy minutes, no worrying over whether hands were in pockets or on tables or whether cellphones were still on. Then, glancing at his watch, Prowl rose to his feet.

"We should return to the station."

"Could we…"

It popped out before Jazz could think about how he was going to phrase what he wanted to say. It left officer Prowl looking at him expectantly in the most businesslike manner possible, which was pretty bad in and of itself.

He'd had the idea smack in the middle of Prowl's story, but that didn't mean it was well-formed in the slightest: he just sort of panicked in a weird way to see Prowl walking away from him in such a private setting, knowing he had to grab it because it might not happen again. If just from rumor, he knew that Prowl was all procedure and very strict about following the rules that were set in place for a _reason _— particularly the ones that are meant to save people from embarrassing social situations, like in-rank fraternization.

Choking a little under Prowl's steady stare, Jazz gave a little shrug and a lame smile.

"I mean, it ain't exactly professional since we'll be workin' together, but could we meet up again sometime?"

Prowl's eyebrows drifted up, the rest of his face remaining blank. It was this expression of gentle disbelief that Jazz would come to see on the SIC quite often, but he would also learn that it meant Prowl was seriously considering something. After a moment, Prowl reached for his leather jacket.

"And why would a dinner between two colleagues be anything but professional?" he asked evenly, tone sending a hopeless feeling through Jazz before he actually heard what he said.

"Well, I don' mean t'assume b — hey, wait a – I didn' say anythin about—"

"Next week?"

"Uh?" Jazz stared at him, stymied by and unwilling to jump over the gap between Prowl's flat expression and the words coming out of his mouth.

"I know a fine Italian café. On Miriams," Prowl clarified, pulling on his jacket and pinning Jazz with his cool eyes again.

"When're you free?" Jazz blurted somewhat helplessly, big hands out. He was suddenly a little frightened by how close he came to saying 'sir'.

"I'll leave you a memo."

Finally, Prowl's business face cracked into a small, solid smile. He put out his hand.

"Welcome to the Ark, Jazz."

"The… Ark?" Jazz repeated blankly, reaching to complete the gesture out of reflex.

"Noah's ark. It's a bit of an inside joke," Prowl explained as he gave the saboteur's hand a firm shake, not quite stopping to realize how huge Jazz's dark hand was around his own. "We're akin to Noah's ark, but hopelessly flawed, as we only have… one kind of animal per—"

Prowl was not a joke-teller: he was far too detail oriented and formal for such a thing. Even if he had been, inside jokes were inside for a reason, and Jazz' utterly perplexed look wasn't worth it. Prowl sighed.

"Come to think of it, I don't believe it was ever explained to me either… Welcome all the same."

"Thank ya, Second in Command."

When Jazz made a wait-for-me motion and gestured towards his coffee, Prowl smiled and exited, presumably to phone in that they would be at the station shortly as he warmed up his car.

After taking his drink up front, Jazz took a moment to breathe in and lean on the little café chair, waiting for his drink to be boxed up. The space around him was completely new in a way that first visits couldn't explain: the longer he stood there, he realized he had little to no idea what had just happened. He had just learned more about his new (if temporary) SIC than he suspected the entire team knew and just got arm-wrestled into a dinner with him.

But, regardless (or rather because) of being put off-guard so soon, he rather liked the man's style. Prowl was a methodical monster, perfectionist in all things and damn effective because of it, but could maybe afford to learn the value of a little improvisation. A perfect foil to his own elastic and easy-going nature. To him, new to the force as he was, Prowl seemed a little untouchable but he would learn, in time, to apply his own street-savvy push to the man and counter him. Together, they would become a relatively unstoppable mystery to the rest of the system that churned around them, uncomprehending of how two men, so different, could work so closely and with such good results.

"Hot damn," Jazz exclaimed quietly, smile edging over his face as he stared at the door. The slight man beyond it unlocked his car and started it up with an unheard turn of a well-kept engine. Jazz's own car seemed to steam impatiently in place, eager to plow through the new snow and match tire with the aloof stranger next to him. Slipping the girl a dollar when she handed him his drink, Jazz stared a moment more and smiled before slipping on his blue visor and walking out to their cars, unknowingly ready for the small half-race back to the station Prowl would surprise him with.

Unless he was mistaken or overly optimistic, Jazz felt like this could be the start of something sweet.


	51. Afterword

Afterword

* * *

Would you believe it? Odd Couple actually has a sequel, if just to prove that it did have a happy ending.

It's called Even Pair and (in the spirit of a thousand fanfics just like it, dear god) it covers the trials and travails of courting a man like Prowl, as told by Jazz, and the trials and travails of being courted by a man like Jazz, as told by Prowl. Only, Prowl still has his knight in white skin in his head and is having trouble moving on, even after years and years without him. I was flirting with the idea of writing it out in full, but I just don't have the time. What I can offer you is the cliffnotes and fragments of the story I was going to write, all to be found (in order, as it would be written) at my LiveJournal. Look up the username Demzbebe and you will find them there.

Now, some of you may be railing at what seems like a last minute switch to an 'enemy' pairing. Even as I adore the LockdownxProwl relationship and I count every one of the 49 chapters I wrote to be totally worthwhile, I'm particularly proud of this (expanded) happy ending. If you've read anything by anyone Greek, you should know about tragic flaws, and Lockdown couldn't escape his particular hamartia, which was a lethal combination of pride and misaligned priorities. Tragic as it is, it's also true, and I'm just glad that Prowl managed to grow past losing him. I can't say I support JazzxProwl in every circumstance, but after humanProwl's various demons get put to rest and he grows into himself, they are exactly what the other needs in this particular universe.

Give it a read and maybe you'll agree. That said, thanks again for sticking with me, guys. You've been the most amazing readership anyone could ask for, especially with as many potshots as I've thrown you. I hope it was mostly good; that there were more smiles than pouts. Heart you and catch you later!

Demyrie


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